Zeven mannen in een bar

About this artwork

Legaat van jkvr. A.C.A.J. Clifford, Den Haag

Art Historical Context

**Zeven mannen in een bar** is a delicate etching by Belgian artist Xavier Mellery, during his active years from 1855 to 1913. Measuring just 80mm high by 120mm wide, this intimate print captures a slice of everyday life: seven men gathered in a bar, rendered with Mellery's characteristic precision. As a master of realism with symbolic undertones, Mellery often ordinary interiors to evoke quiet human connection, bridging 19th-century Belgian genre scenes with emerging modernist sensibilities. Etching, Mellery's favored medium here, involves incising lines into a metal plate with acid, allowin...

About the Artist

Xavier Mellery · 1845–1921

Xavier Mellery (1845–1921) was a Belgian symbolist painter, draftsman, and illustrator who stands as a crucial precursor and founding figure of Belgian Symbolism, one of the most distinctive movements in late 19th-century European art. Born on August 9, 1845, in Laeken (a district of Brussels) as the son of a gardener at the Royal Palace, and dying on February 4, 1921, in Brussels, Mellery's caree...