Portrait of Constantin Meunier

The man in this portrait is Constantin Meunier, by 1900 Belgium's great sculptor of labor, known for bronze miners and dockworkers with heavy hands and bent backs. The two went back a long way. They first met in 1882 in Seville, where Meunier, on a government commission, was copying an old Descent from the Cross, and van Rysselberghe was a 20-year-old passing through Spain. Meunier was near 70 when he sat for this. By now the painter was letting go of the strict pointillist dots that had made his name and working the face in broader, quieter strokes. He shows the older man alone, without any of the tools of his trade.