BY JACQUES DE BRAEKELEER, LATE 19TH CENTURY

Jacques de Braekeleer (d.1906) came from a Belgian family of celebrated painters, and was nephew of Ferdinand de Braekeleer (d.1883) and younger brother of Adrien de Braekeleer. He studied at the Antwerp Academy and was a pupil in the workshop of Jean-Baptiste de Cuyper (d.1852). His subsequent years in Paris were spent working in collaboration with Francisque Duret (d.1865) and Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (d.1887). Returning to Belgium De Braekeleer exhibited for the first time at the Salon triennial with his Christian Slave-Girl. From then until 1894, he was to become a regular exhibitor at the latter, as well as at the Antwerp Salon. The subjects of his work varied from religious, such as La Fragilité (1849) and allegorical, to portrait busts and statues, such as his celebrated monument to Quentin Metsys (1888).

The present marble figure, entitled The Expectation (De afwachting) and dated 1885, relates closely to an earlier group known as The Wait, exhibited at the Brussels Salon in 1860 (now in the collection of the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique). The latter depicts a young fisherman's wife, cradling her infant child, awaiting her husband's return from the sea. In the present example, the young woman, possibly the fisherman's lover rather than his wife, is shown alone. The net of the earlier group, falling across the mother's legs, is now replaced with drapery which she clutches to her bare breast.