Portrait of a beauty in a hat was executed around 1900s by Fernand Toussaint (1873–1956), high quoted Belgian painter and illustrator of the 19th century.  He was born in Brussels in 1873 in a family of upper-middle class. When his parents discovered his talent in drawing they helped him to develop it in full.

At age 15 he began studying art with Jean-Frncois Portaels at the Acdemy Royale des Beaux-Arts  and three years later left for Paris to continue his studies there. He made his study under the well-known Belgian portraitist Alfred Stevens. He specialised in painting portraits of women, still lifes and city-scapes, in the Impressionist, Art Nouveu and Post- Impressionist styles. His works include paintings, water-colours and posters.^[2] He is also a famed artist to depict beautiful floral still lifes and interiors, coastal views and seascapes. In this genre his paintings have to be compare with the painters of his epoque the likes of Constant Permeke and Adrien le Mayeur de Merprès, that influenced much his own manner. One of the Belgian art critics of that time Camille Lemonnier  said about Toussaint, that he was "one of the painters that broadened the horizon of the peaceful and intimate landscape". Beginning from 1895 Toussaint had been receiving a lot of orders for commercial posters for different official events. He died in the Brussels suburb of Elsene.

Source: Art lexicons by Thiemw/Becker, Bénézit and others.

Inscription: signed with monogram.

Technique: watercolour on paper, framed.

Measurements: unframed 10 5/8" x 15 1/8" (27 x 38,5 cm), framed 13" x 18 1/8" (33 x 46 cm).

Condition: good original condition.