Villa Rayon de soleil (The Artist’s House in Astene), 1906

At the beginning of the 20th century Emile Claus was a celebrated artist on the international art scene. The highlight is undoubtedly the gold medal he received at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900. Claus did not live in isolation by any means. Villa Rayon de soleil, his country house at the River Lys in Astene (near Deinze), is a hospitable place, and friends like Léonce Bénédite, the then director of the Musée du Luxembourg, and the authors Camille Lemonnier and Emile Verhaeren repeatedly spend their holidays there. His Parisian friend, the critic Gabriel Mourey, testified about this in 1902: "C'est vraiment la maison du soleil, un foyer d'art et d'amitié, une hospitalière demeure en pleine nature, au cœur de la vie." (Gabriel Mourey, Des Hommes devant la Nature et la Vie, Paris, Paul Ollendorf, 1902, p. 123)