Few paintings in early twentieth-century Belgian art so delight in animal cunning as How Reynard gives two letters to Belijn and how the ram gets them to the court by Gustave Van de Woestijne. The work draws directly from the medieval beast epic Reynard the Fox, a tale that has fascinated writers and artists for centuries with its sharp satire of human society. Van de Woestijne was part of the First School of Latem, a group of artists who, around 1900, sought to revive Flemish traditions through modern eyes.

In this painting, he seizes on a pivotal episode: the fox’s manipulation of the innocent ram, Belijn, to deliver messages that are anything but innocent. At the heart of the scene, Reynard the Fox, notorious trickster of fable, entrusts two letters to the unsuspecting Belijn. One is meant for the king’s court, the other conceals a deadly secret. Van de Woestijne captures the tension of this moment—the fox’s sly glance, the ram’s trusting posture, and the careful placement of the letters—each detail a clue to the story’s double-cross.

The earthy palette and flattened forms recall the moralizing woodcuts of the Northern Renaissance, yet the psychological charge is modern. Unlike Stephan Lochner’s more playful medieval illuminations of Reynard, Van de Woestijne’s version is darker, the animals’ expressions edged with unease, the landscape sparse and watchful. The precise date and circumstances of this painting’s creation remain uncertain, as do its early owners. What is clear is that How Reynard gives two letters to Belijn and how the ram gets them to the court stands as a testament to Van de Woestijne’s fascination with allegory and the moral ambiguities of folk narrative.

The work has appeared in several retrospectives of Belgian Symbolism, where it is often discussed alongside the artist’s more mystical portraits and rural scenes. Today, it continues to invite viewers into the tangled world of Reynard, where wit and trust are always at odds.