Female painters still underrated it seems: Louise de Hem

Legros, from Belgium, sells on 29 November 2018 a "Louise de Hem" still life, estimated at 200 to 250 Euro.

This is a ridiculously low price, compared to what her work already sold for, and the significantly increased attention (and corresponding market) for good pre-20th century women artists. And she is universally acknowledged as one of the very good ones: in the 2002 book by Spanish Jordi Vigue, "Great Women Masters of Art", she gets her own 4 page entry right between similar entries for Suzanne Valadon and Käthe Kollwitz!

Louise de Hem (1866-1922) was a painter from Ieper (Ypres). Her brother-in-law was a painter, and encouraged her to go for a similar career. Due to the severe restrictions against women artists in Belgium at the time (e;g. no nude painting, no access to academies), she moved to Paris, where she soon exhibited at the salons, with considerable success. She specialized in two areas: artisticratic, luxurious portraits, in the style of her teacher Alfred Stevens, and still lifes harking back to 17th century examples of Heda and the like, but somewhat more monochrome.

The success of her art allowed  her to build a large Art Nouveau house with workshop in Vorst (or Forest, part of Brussels) in 1902-1905. In 1911 she was even knighted.

Some of her works from the Ieper Museum can be seen on the Cultured wiki.

Her 1890 self portrait shows a confident woman, in a work which has influences of Symbolism and especially from photography, it seems.

Her 1892 "Peasant Girl" from the Ieper Museum is a forerunner of the Belgian Luminism of Emile Claus, and a beautiful work in its own right.

Later portraits are more stylized and commercial, but still show great technical skill and are very alluring. For her 1904 work "The Japanese Doll" she got a Golden Medal at the Salon.

She was also a master of the pastel technique, as seen in this 1901 "Gitane" and 1902 "The Black Cat".

Her portraits rarely come on the market, her still lifes are slightly more common, but even so Artvalue only lists 5 sales this century. Much of her work is in the Museum of Ieper: it was largely destroyed during the first World War (which also meant the end of the active career of De Hem), and in 1927 45 of her works were donated to the museum by her sister Hélène.

A similar (though more cleanly finished) work was sold at Christie's in 2013 for £3,250.

Another, considerably larger still life was sold at Horta (Belgium) in 2012 for 2,600 Euro.

Her portraits, when they do come on the market, fetch even higher prices: one large pastel sold in 2008 for 5,200 Euro, and a "Retour de Bal" sold in 2016 for 10,500 Euro at Bernaerts.

The one for sale here should be worth at least 1,500 Euro, and considering the increased market for women artists it will get harder and harder to buy a good work by her for such a price.

UPDATE: sold for 750 Euro.