Mathieu-Ignace van Brée (1773–

1839)

• Was a Belgian painter.
• He was first trained from the age of 10 in the local art academy.
• One of his teachers was Petrus Johannes van Regemorter.
• He became assistant-professor at the Academy and got his own studio in 1794.
• He left for Paris in 1797 where he studied with François-André Vincent.
• He participated that year in the Paris Salon and won second prize in the Prix de Rome.

• He returned to Antwerp in 1804 and became a professor at the Antwerp Academy.

• Van Bree was after the end of French occupation in 1813 a member of the commission responsible for recovering works of art confiscated by the French and was able to retrieve many works by Rubens.

• In 1821 he traveled to Italy and visited Florence and Rome with his former pupil Ferdinand de Braekeleer the Elder.

• In Florence he made in the Uffizi drawings after portraits by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.

• In 1827 he became director of the Antwerp Academy after the resignation of Willem Jacob Herreyns.

• He trained some of the eminent painters of the next generation such as Egide Charles Gustave Wappers, Nicaise de Keyser, Jan August Hendrik Leys, Antoine Wiertz, Jules Victor Génisson.

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