Xavier Mellery

Xavier Mellery (Laeken, 1845 – Laeken, 1921) was a Belgian Symbolist painter whose quiet, sober interiors place him among the most distinctive artists of his country at the end of the century. Trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels under Jean-François Portaels, he won the Prix de Rome in 1870, which took him to Italy to study the Venetian school, especially Carpaccio, and Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel.

Back in Belgium he was commissioned to illustrate a work by Charles de Coster and withdrew to the Dutch island of Marken, where he came to value silence and solitude. From that experience grew his notion of the "soul of things", which he expressed in nearly empty interior scenes such as Kitchen Interior (1890), where the interplay of colour values takes centre stage. From 1885 he also worked in mural painting, with allegories recalling Puvis de Chavannes. He often worked in sepia over gold ground and was an accomplished draughtsman in conté crayon.

He was a member of the Les Vingt group and exhibited at the Salon de la Rose+Croix. He was the teacher of Fernand Khnopff, and his work is held in many Belgian museums.