Explore the Setting of this artwork.
De Braekeleer used the Brouwershuis in Antwerp as the setting for The Man in the Chair. The painting was exhibited for the first time under the title Room in the Brouwershuis. 
The Brouwershuis, or Waterhuis in Antwerp is a building dating from 1554, built by order and according to plans by Gilbert van Schoonbeke. The house was located on the Eerste Antwerpse vliet in what was then Nieuwstad. Water was pumped up into the structure and from thence distributed to the approximately sixteen surrounding breweries that had largely established themselves on the vliet; this is why the first vliet was called Brouwersvliet. The entrance to the building is today on Adriaan Brouwerstraat. The building also has a façade, without access, on the Brouwersvliet, which was filled up in 1930 and converted into a boulevard, which includes the tunnel mouth and the first part of the tunnel shaft of the Waasland tunnel under the Scheldt.Henri Leys, uncle and teacher of De Braekeleer, introduced the artist to this place. Both painters incorporated the centuries-old interior into their oeuvre several times.
building boulevard Antwerp Henri Leys breweries Scheldt