Jean Joseph Weerts (1846-1927) - Reverie - Oil On Panel Signed

Jean Joseph WEERTS
(Roubaix, 1846 - Paris, 1927)

Reverie

Oil on panel
Signed and dated 1893 upper left
33 x 23.5 cm

Exhibition: Mulhouse Salon of 1896, under number 337, entitled Rêverie

Son of parents from Belgium, WEERTS was first student of Constantin MILS in his hometown where he was quickly noticed for his talent. He entered then in 1867, thanks to an annual pension of 1200 francs granted by the city of Roubaix sensitive to his aptitudes, to the Imperial School of the Beaux-Arts of Paris, where he was pupil of Alexandre CABANEL.
He started at the Paris Salon of 1867, was a member of the Society of French Artists in 1883, then the National Society of Fine Arts in 1892. He was knighted the Legion of Honor in 1884 and officer in 1897 and finally Commander in 1914.

His career as official painter of the Third Republic was fruitful and crowned by French and foreign distinctions: hors concours at the Salon of French Artists, second class medal at the Paris Salon of 1875, medal at the Salon of London in 1875 Grand Prix Wicar in Lille in 1877, silver medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, etc.
WEERTS is above all a portraitist with more than seven hundred works including many portraits including Doumer, Chaumie, Robert-Fleury, Liard, etc. But he also gained a great reputation in monumental decoration. In 1887, he made the decoration of the ceiling of the Council Chamber at the Limoges City Hall, in 1882, that of the Monetary Museum of the Hotel de la Monnaie in Paris, in 1894, the voussures of the Hôtel de Paris. City of Paris, in 1903, the Sorbon Gallery at the Sorbonne where he painted The Lendit Festival, in 1911, the hemicycle of the Faculty of Medicine of Lyon.

In Roubaix, he will give eternal gratitude for the scholarship received at the beginning of his career. The founding in 1924 of the "Weerts" painting prize and the creation of his museum, which he inaugurated the year of his death in 1927, bear witness to this recognition. Our Reverie can rediscover this artist prolix, celebrated and honored of his time, since fallen in the dark. This study, although dated 1893 under a repaint, was exhibited at the Salon de Mulhouse in 1896 as indicated by a label affixed to the reverse of the frame.

WEERTS is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (82nd division) and a street in Roubaix bears his name. A monument in his tribute, executed by the sculptor Alexandre DESCATOIRE, is at the BARBIEUX park of Roubaix.

In 1989, the city of Roubaix paid tribute to the town hall.

Museums: Bordeaux, Dijon, Dunkirk, Evreux, Lille, Lyon, Nancy, Paris (Louvre Museum), Roubaix, Tourcoing ...