Have you ever heard of Anna Boch? She was one of the founding members of the Belgian League for Women's Rights, and an accomplished painter in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Her surname might very well ring a bell... Anna was the daughter of Victor Boch, one of the founders of the well-known Royal-Boch-Keramis faience factory, located in La Louvière and which brought its commercial activity to an end only some ten years ago.
Born in 1848 in the Hainaut, Anna grew up as part of the upper middle class, meaning she enjoyed great material wealth. Her childhood was spent in La Closière, in an extravagant castle that Poelaert built for her father. With an artistic background in music and painting, she was often seen with great names such as Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec.
She first received musical training, before turning her hand to painting, which she studied in Brussels with Isidore Verheyden and Theo Van Rysselberghe, which explains her preference for non-traditional art. She was soon drawn, like her brother, to the great names in art, such as Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec.
In 1907, Anna acquired a car and travelled across Europe alone, which was most unusual at the time! She had a sumptuous mansion built in Ixelles, at the intersection of the Rue de l'Abbaye and the Chaussée de Vleurgat. Inspired by Art Nouveau, it was demolished in 1954 to make room for a corner apartment building. She organised musical Mondays at her residence, set up a significant patronage and amassed a collection of paintings that was dispersed at her death. Among others, she bought a Van Gogh, quite possibly the only painting he sold during his lifetime!
Anna died in Brussels in 1936.
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