Jan van Beers

Jan van Beers studied at Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The recorded working language is Dutch and French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris. Work by Jan van Beers is recorded in the collections of Stadsarchief Rotterdam, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, Fries Museum, Noordbrabants Museum and Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

• Name — Jan van Beers • Birth Name — Joannes Maria Constantinus Josephus Van Beers • Born — 27 March 1852 • Birthplace — Lier, Belgium • Died — 17 November 1927 • Place of death — Fay-aux-Loges, France • Field — Painter, illustrator • Illustration — An 1891 Vanity Fair caricature of Van Beers titled "The Modern Wiertz"

Van Beers studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Soon afterwards, he became the leader of a group of young artists, the "Van Beers clique." This group included the artists Piet Verhaert (1852–1908), Alexander Struys (1852–1941), and Jef Lambeaux (1852–1908). They were well known for their mischievous and eccentric behaviour, including walking around Antwerp dressed in historic costumes. Van Beers began his career as a history painter, producing works relating to the Renaissance. These included Funeral of Charles the Good, which was so large and contained so many figures that van Beers said he only recouped the costs of production, despite selling it for 12,000 Francs.

In 1880 he moved to Paris and immediately abandoned historical pictures, producing instead genre and portrait works of the middle classes and developing a successful line in attractive draped young ladies reading a letter or a book or day-dreaming about a lover. Van Beers said that he wanted to paint what he saw and what were the best and most interesting things that one saw in Paris but her women? He explained in an 1893 interview for the Westminster Budget that "all my pictures are from models, and I know where to find them whenever I want them. It requires a good deal of diplomacy to get them to pose. One has to pet and coax them, and even then they often leave you in the lurch." Vanity Fair showed him with a typical subject in their 1891 caricature titled "The Modern Wiertz" (Antoine Wiertz, 1806–65). Van Beers' work was often compared to that of his Belgian predecessor, particularly the more macabre and grotesque elements. In his novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy mentions "the staring and ghastly attitudes of a Wiertz Museum and with the leer of a study by Van Beers". • Illustration — A balcony, undated • Illustration — The letter, 1885 • Illustration — Portrait of a young woman, 1883 • Illustration — With thoughts of him, undated • Illustration — Rendez-vous in the Bois de Boulogne, 1889 • Illustration — Portrait of a noble woman, 1880s In Paris, Van Beers began construction of a house, off the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, where each room was to be of a different design. The project was controversial and people said that it was the work of a madman.

The authorities additionally record the headings Joannes Maria Constantinus Josephus Van Beers, Jan Van Beers, Jean Marie Constantin Joseph Van Beers and van beers j. His recorded languages were Dutch and French.

In addition to Van Beers' languid ladies, he painted a number of portraits of men, genre scenes and pictures in an orientalist style. Five hand-coloured chromolithographs of his paintings are used in the screens in The Flask public house in Hampstead, London. • Illustration — Henri Rochefort, undated. • Illustration — Portrait of a man, undated. Possibly Franz von Wertheim, Jr. • Illustration — Emperor Charles V as a child, 1879 • Illustration — When stars set • Illustration — Boy with hummingbird • Illustration — Remembrance • Illustration — The melon seller • Illustration — Woman in Evening Dress (after 1882), Oil on canvas, 10 13/16 x 14 in. (27.4 x 35.6 cm), Clark Art Institute

Van Beers was an active commercial illustrator and his work featured in posters and advertising. • Illustration — 1898 poster • Illustration — Commercial illustration, 1907 • Illustration — La vague (The wave)