Portrait of Marguerite Khnopff

Sexual, even perverse, undertones appear in some of Khnopff’s favourite themes, as in the portrait of 1887 of his sister Marguerite Khnopff, which he eventually installed in an altar-like setting in his studio and kept until his death. She appears in a tight, plain, high-necked, long-sleeved, floor-length dress, enclosed in a sparse, carefully balanced rectilinear setting that previews the interior of the house he would build for himself nearly two decades later. The powerful image of a woman held in check, almost in bondage, by her clothes and her environment had a special meaning for Khnopff, and he used it often.