Ghent school: The Baut de Rasmon family in Wannegem-Lede castle park, oil on canvas, early 19th C.

Work: 163 x 137 cm

Frame: 186,5 x 160 cm

The Castle of Wannegem-Lede, also called the 'Petit Trianon' of Flanders (cf. Park of Versailles), is an example of a late 18th-century 'maison de plaisance' in a purely classicist or Louis XVI style. Barnabé Guimard designed it in 1785-86. He was a student of Jacques-Ange Gabriel (Palace of Versailles) and master builder of the Place Royale, the Parc de Warande and the Palace of the Nation in Brussels. The client was Alphonse Pierre Antoine Baut de Rasmon (Ghent, 1756 - Wannegem-Lede, 1833), who comes from a wealthy Ghent family of industrialists. His father bought the manor of Wannegem-Lede in 1765 from the Montmorency family. In 1859 the castle came in the hands of the noble De Ghellinck family (link).

Baut was a Dutch/Belgian landowner, notable and politician. Until 1795 he was Baron Claesman, after 1816 he was Baron Baut de Rasmon. Baut was a notable from a wealthy family and studied law at the University of Leuven, where he obtained his law degree in 1778. He was an enthusiastic botanist and co-founder of the botanical garden in Ghent and had a beautiful garden around his castle in Wannegem. Baut was constitutional notable for the Scheldt department (Oudenaarde) when approving the constitution of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. From 1815 to 1818 he was also a member of the House of Representatives of the States General for East Flanders, and from 1816 he was a Baron and a member of the Knighthood of East Flanders. With an income of 50,000 Fr. he was wealthy (link).