After receiving training at the Art Academy in his hometown of Brussels, Alfred Cluysenaar studied with Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) in Paris. Later, he traveled for several years through Germany and Italy, where he finally settled in Rome with his own atelier. In 1866, he finally had an artistic breakthrough with the much-vaunted painting The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Fig. 1), which Cluysenaar also presented the following year in Paris. In Brussels, he soon rose to prominence as an in-demand portrait painter, and also received numerous prestigious commissions to decorate public buildings. He taught as a professor at the College of Arts in Antwerp, oversaw the drawing school in St. Gilles, near Brussels, and was honoured with membership into the Académie de Belgique as well as the Belgian Legion of Honour. Cluysenaar’s works were shown in all of the important salons in European metropolises during the late 19th century.