Background
Edwin Lord Weeks was born in Boston, Massachussets. He was the son of Stephen and Mary (Lord) Weeks, and a descendant of Leonard Weeks, who emigrated from Somersetshire, England, and settled in Portsmouth, N. H. , where he received a grant of land, in 1656.
Education
Edwin Weeks studied in the public schools of Boston and Newton, but before finishing his course he had an opportunity to go to Paris, where he began his art education at the École des Beaux-Arts under Léon Bonnat and J. L. Gér"me.
Career
While his training was still in progress he journeyed to Tangier, Algiers, and Cairo, where he made a number of striking paintings. Some of these early works were hung in the Paris Salon during his novitiate, and the favorable verdict of the critics, together with the approval of his masters, encouraged him to specialize in Oriental subjects. He traveled to Palestine, and did some work in Jerusalem and Damascus, and then ventured on an expedition to India. There during the eighties and nineties he produced an extensive series of brilliant compositions, many of which were exhibited at the Paris Salon. Notable examples included "Jeypore" and "A Hindu Sanctuary at Bombay" (1884); "The Last Voyage, Souvenir of the Ganges, Benares" (1885) and "The Rajah Starting on a Hunt, " both in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; "A Rajah of Jodhpore" (1888); "The Golden Temple of Amritsar" (1890); and "The Barbers of Saharanpore" (1895). His "Departure for the Hunt, India" (1884) is in the permanent collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; "The Porter of Bagdad" was bought by the Cercle Volney, Paris; and the "Three Beggars of Cordova" went to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. At the Paris Exposition of 1900 he was represented by "The Awakening of Nourredin, " "On the Road to Ispahan, " and "Indian Barber. " In these paintings Weeks has given to those who are familiar only with the western world "some idea of the sunlight, the color, and the strange, curiously wrought structures of the East, " to quote the words of Samuel Isham, "and his clear, sure interpretation carries conviction of the accuracy of the reproduction". He wrote From the Black Sea through Persia and India (1896), Some Episodes of Mountaineering (1897), and contributed a number of papers to books and magazines. For many years he made his home in Paris, and it was there that his death occurred in the autumn of 1903, when he was fifty-four. The funeral, which was held at the American Church, was attended by leading French and American artists, and many wreaths were sent by artistic societies in France and the United States. The interment was at Billancourt.