Florent Willems

(1823-1905)

Florent Willems was born in Liege, Belgium on January 8, 1823 and died in France in1905. He is considered a portrait and genre painter.
He received his artistic training while attending lectures at the Malines Academy. 

He had his first exhibition and sold his first painting at the age of sixteen for a sum of 250 francs. To support his education, he worked in a Gallery in Brussels as a restorer.  Before he was eighteen, Willems found a friend and patron in Sir Hamilton Seymour, who commissioned him to paint portraits of his wife and children. It was through this patronage and his first exhibition that Willems received tremendous success and positive critical acclaim. In 1842 he exhibited in Brussels "Le Corps-de-Garde" and "Music-lesson" (purchased by the late King of Belgium) and received a Medal. Willems continued to receive commissions from the court to paint 16th and 17th century costume paintings.

In 1844, Willems decided that to continue his career he must travel to Paris and he became very interested in Dutch 17th Century Masters. He started to study paintings and the academic techniques of Terburg, Metsu and Miens and especially his friend and fellow artist Alfred Stevens. It was Florent Willems who helped Alfred Stevens progress with his abilities to paint beautiful ladies. It was this subject that the great Belgium artist, Alfred Stevens, became most noted. While in Paris, Willems continued to win medals and other honors; 1853, Chevalier in the Legion of Honor, officer in 1854 and commander in 1878.  His favorable French acclaim was a result of the Paris Exhibition of 1855 in which he exhibited "The Interior of a Silk-Mercers Shop in 1660 (purchased by Napoleon III) and "Coquetry" (purchased by the Empress).