Background
Gustaf Wappers, full named Egidius Karel Gustave Wappers, was born on August 23, 1803, in Antwerp, Belgium. He was a son of Charles Jacques Wappers and Marguerite Léonard.
Blindestraat 35, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
Royal Academy of Fine Arts
Gustave
Gustaf Wappers, full named Egidius Karel Gustave Wappers, was born on August 23, 1803, in Antwerp, Belgium. He was a son of Charles Jacques Wappers and Marguerite Léonard.
Gustaf Wappers was taught at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. In 1826, he pursued his studies in Paris.
Gustaf Wappers presented his Devotion of the Burgomaster of Leiden at the Brussels Salon in 1830. The painting had a great success and somehow revolutionized the artistic mind of many young artists. Wappers received the invitation to the court at Brussels and a great number of commissions. Two years after his professional debut he was named Professor of Painting by the city of Antwerp.
The next significant exhibition at which the painter took part was the Antwerp Salon in 1834 where Wappers presented Episode of the September Days of 1830 on the Grand Place of Brussels. Soon, King of the Belgians Leopold named Gustaf Wappers his titular painter. The last year of the 1830s, Wappers succeeded Matthieu-Ignace Van Brée on the post of the president of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and had held this position till 1853.
One of Gustaf Wappers’s remarkable projects became a huge painting for the gallery at Versailles, "The Defence of Rhodes by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem" commissioned by Louis Philippe. Wappers finished the painting in 1844.
Portrait of a Man
Anthony van Dyck in Love with His Model
Episode of the September Days 1830 (on the Grand Place of Brussels)
Leopold of Saksen
Self Sacrifice of Mayor Van Der Werff
The Vision of Joan of Arc
The Defence of Rhodes by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem
Portrait of a Belgian Officer
Boccaccio Reading from the Decamerone to Queen Johanna of Naples
Leopold, Duke of Brabant
Marquise de Louvencour
Portrait of Louise of Orléans
The Defence of Rhodes by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem
Souvenir of Anvers
André de Chénier in the Saint-Lazare prison with the duchess of Saint-Aignant, Madame de Coigny and Countess Sébastiani
Apparition
Venetian Theater Scene
Hunters on the River Bank
The Battles of the Guldensporen
Portrait of a Family with a Silversmith Foundry in the Background
The Return of Columbus
Animated Interior Scene
The Conviction of Jan Breydel
Fisherman’s Wife and Child at Sea
Christopher Columbus in Chains
Portrait of a Seated Man in 17th Century Dress
Portrait of a Lady
Gustaf Wappers married Jeanne Catherine Knight on November 26, 1840. The couple had three daughters. The first one named Claire Charlotte was born in 1842, the second one, Catherine Elisabeth, came a year later and the last, Gabrielle, was born in 1849.