Edmond Van Hove was the eighth child of Jan Van Hove and Isabella Hooghuys. In 1871 he went to Paris, where he attended the École des Beaux-Arts. He returned to Bruges in 1875, where he was appointed to the Academy in 1890. In 1898, he painted his most famous work, The Three Sister Cities (referring to the cities of Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp), a work composed of three panels measuring 70 by 53 cm. Each city is symbolically represented by a female figure. Van Hove moved to Antwerp in 1899 and moved to Ghent in 1902, finally returning to Bruges in 1910. He painted "religious scenes mostly set in the Bruges of his time, historical scenes, beautiful portraits and allegorical scenes".