In his childhood Khnopff spent part of his summer holidays in the hamlet of Tillet[1] not so far from Bastogne in the Luxemburg province where his maternal grandparents owned an estate.

During this period, he developed a passion for literature, discovering the works of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle and other mostly French authors.

Khnopff left University due to a lack of interest in his law studies and began to frequent the studio of Xavier Mellery, who made him familiar with the art of painting.

In 1885, he met the French writer Joséphin Péladan the future grandmaster of the Rosicrucian "Ordre de la Rose + Croix".

The vehement reaction of "La Caron" on this occasion made a scandal in the Belgian and Parisian press and would help to establish Khnopff's name as an artist.

On several occasions (1892, 1893, 1894 and 1897) Khnopff was invited as guest of honour on the exhibitions of the Parisian "Salon de la Rose + Croix" organised by Péladan.

Until the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Khnopff would be responsible for the rubric "Studio-Talks-Brussels" in which he reported about the artistic evolutions in Belgium and continental Europe.

Khnopff's first designs for the theatre date from 1903 when he sketched the sets for a production of Georges Rodenbach's play "Le Mirage" at the Deutsches Theater Berlin.

This production was directed by the famous Max Reinhardt, and the sets evoking the gloomy streets of the mysterious city of Bruges where Khnopff had spent his early childhood, were much appreciated by the Berlin public and critics.

Here Khnopff came in touch again with prominent artists from the Vienna Secession; the architect of the Stoclet Palace Josef Hoffmann, and Gustav Klimt who had designed a decorative mosaic for its dining room.

The numbers accompanied by the abbreviation: "dCOZ" refer to the catalogue of the works of Khnopff by Catherine de Croës and Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque (1987).