Jean-François Portaels

Why this artist matters now

Jean-François Portaels or Jan Portaels was a Belgian painter of genre scenes, biblical stories, landscapes, portraits and orientalist subjects. He was also a teacher and director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Ghent and the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He is regarded as the founder of the Belgian Orientalist school. He was praised in his time as the premier painter of 'everyday elegance and feminine grace'. Through his art, teaching and his leadership of the Académie Royale in Brussels he exerted an important influence on the next generation of Belgian artists, including his pupil Théo van Rysselberghe.

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