He attended the classes of the great Jean Léon Gérôme and frequented the Fauves and Impressionists.
He returned to Belgium in 1907 and frequented various artistic groups. He exhibited in the most important European Salons.
He also became a theater decorator and worked on the artistic direction of certain films.

In the years 1915, Arthur Navez launches into a series entitled "Women at the café".
One by one, we find the influence of the great impressionist masters that he frequented, Paris: Manet, Renoir, Degas...
Our painting is one of them.

The painter takes up here the impressionist codes: the portrait of a lonely woman, elegantly dressed, who looks attentively at the spectator with a melancholic air.
Obviously, behind her, a large mirror, allowing to enlarge the painting and to play with the reflection.
The artist has a predilection for scenes of everyday life and portraits. Often, the characters go about their business without worrying about the viewer's gaze on them.

Having lived in Paris where everything happens at the bistro, Navez executed many paintings on this theme;
It is a portrait of great beauty, but also of a great technique that the painter executes.

Look carefully at the colors, all in pastel tones enhanced by a few brighter touches of white or blue, brown, bringing contrast and vivacity to the scene.
Observe the reflection of the roses in the mirror, the transparency of the glass placed on a tray, the velvety texture of the peach, the lustful pause of the hands...

It is a luminous, tender and poetic painting that the artist offers us.