Jan-Baptist Huysmans (1826 - 1906)

A pupil of the Antwerp Academy from 1843 to 1849, Jan-Baptist Huysmans exhibited for the first time in that city in 1850. After 1856, he made a number of journeys to Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine (where he painted large religious scenes for churches in Jerusalem), Egypt and Algeria. He later wrote several accounts of his experiences. Many of Huysman's Orientalist pictures were of simple, everyday scenes with strong colouring and well-observed details of costume and objects. In an unusual painting of his, illustrated here, mothers bring their children to be blessed by a holy man, the sheikh, or master, of this particular order of dervishes; this act was considered to bring good luck.

Huysmans also travelled in Europe, exhibiting in Paris and later in England and Scotland: fourteen paintings were shown at The Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts between 1882 and 1891 and two at The Manchester Art Gallery. In Belgium, he decorated the community halls of Gheel and Comines and, in 1866, painted a scene commemorating the laying of a foundation stone by King Leopold I in Antwerp ten years earlier. Huysmans returned to Paris late in life, but it is not known whether he died there.

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