Egide Charles Gustave, Baron Wappers

Belgian painter, 1803–1874

BiographyEgide Charles Gustave, Baron Wappers (1803–1874) Belgian painter. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and in Paris in 1826. The Romantic Movement with its new ideas about art and politics was just unfolding in France at this time. Wappers was the first Belgian artist to take up this style in his painting, The Devotion of the Burgomaster of Leiden, was very successful at the Brussels Salon of 1830. Wappers was invited to the court at Brussels, where he received several commissions. In 1832 he was appointed him Professor of Painting for the City of Antwerp. His subjects included history and religious paintings.
He exhibited his masterpiece, Episode of the September Days of 1830 on the Grand Place of Brussels (Museum of Ancient Art, Brussels) at the Antwerp Salon in 1834 and was subsequently appointed painter to Leopold, King of the Belgians. In 1839 he was made Director of the Antwerp Academy, where he mentored a number of important artists including Ford Madox Brown and Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Louis Philippe commissioned him to paint a large painting for the gallery at Versailles, entitled The Defense of Rhodes by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. He finished the work in 1844, the same year that he received the title of Baron from Belgian king Leopold I. After retiring as Director of the Antwerp Academy, he settled in 1853 in Paris until the end of his life.

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