Théo Van Rysselberghe was a truly great portrait painter. His wife Maria, his daughter Élisabeth, and his friends Verhaeren, Maus, Signac, Gide, Boch and so many others were asked to sit for the artist. With success came a flood of commissions from France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and England. Van Rysselberghe knew how to choose his clients, all of whom were very wealthy, from Emile Mayrish to the Schlumbergers and Count Kessler. His letters to his wife Maria bear witness to the care he took with his commissions. Alas, all things pass, and so does inspiration. Commissioned portraits bored him, and this became increasingly apparent. The double portrait of Madame Goldner Max and her daughter Juliette, put up for sale by Horta on 25 May 2026, is a world away from his masterpiece, Verhaeren in his Study, painted in 1892 and which I had chosen for the cover of my exhibition at Bozar. Although dated 1915 by the artist, the double portrait of the Goldner Max family would not be completed until a few years later (correspondence with Mrs Goldner Max), but the initial studies do indeed date from 1915. The artist is finding it very difficult to make progress on ‘the portrait of the Goldner Max girl’, he writes to Henri Van de Velde, adding, ‘I am dealing with an extraordinarily restless, impatient and undisciplined model’. This large painting is therefore complicated and, let’s be honest, of little interest. The models are unknown and the colours are equally lacklustre. The whole thing is rather dreary, and however great the painter’s talent and fame may have been, no one would want to live with it. Already unsold in 2007, Horta’s estimate (€25,000–35,000) would have put off even the most short-sighted of the few enthusiasts, and the painting logically remained unsold, despite the glowing publicity given to it by Le Soir, which described its estimate as ‘relatively cautious’. ‘Out of price’ would have been more appropriate, it seems to me. Le Soir, increasingly uninformative, even predicted ‘potential competitive interest’. For my part, watching the auction live, I saw a deathly silence, and the painting crashed at 18,000 euros without a single bid. All of this is perfectly logical and predictable. What is ugly remains ugly.