The Neo-Renaissance style Grand Hotel Hotel Waldhaus Vulpera with Sgraffito-Elements was one of the first addresses in the Swiss Alps and was a major Belle Époque monument in Europe.
The sgraffiti are drawn in the art technique of trompe l’oeil, giving a false perspective and the illusion of a column.
Very soon afterwards he enrolled at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (in the class of Constant Montald), where he studied painting (as a pupil of Jean Portaels) and the sgraffito technique, and followed courses in decorative painting (1893–1898).