Following his marriage, the oeuvre of Belgian Symbolist Léon Spilliaert underwent a dramatic change from the more sombre work of his early years. Spilliaert married in 1916 and soon after became father to Madeleine. He left Ostend at the beginning of 1917 with the intention of joining the Pacifist movement in Switzerland, however, the events of the First World War prevented him from successfully relocating his young family to Geneva.

He then settled in Brussels but, inevitably, pined for the sea and coastal atmosphere of his native Ostend. After experimenting with lithography, he discovered a new medium of expression which delighted him – watercolour. He was immediately won over by the luminosity of this water-based paint which forc...