Jean Colin was of course a Brussels artist. After all, he lived in Brussels all his life. Until 1909 he lived with his parents, at Nieuwstraat 42 (#049 and #084). From 1909 to 1916 he lived at Treurenbergstraat 16 and, until 1928, at Markiesstraat 9. After this, he moved to Korte Hulpstraat 3 in Schaerbeek, to quarters where the Franco-Belgian artist Ernest Blanc-Garin32 used to have a renowned art school. In 1935 and 1936, Colin lived for a short time at Faiderstraat 29 in Ixelles, after which he moved to Liefdadigheidsstraat 37 in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, where he spent the rest of his life. Colin’s last address was on the first floor of Mommen Studios, where both his living quarters and his workroom were. Mommen Studios had been established by Félix Mommen, a Limburg fine furniture maker, who had specialised in the production and the sale of materials to visual artists. From 1874, he had a property built in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode where such equipment was produced and sold, while at the same time providing – at a reasonable rent – living quarters and workrooms for artists. Artists such as Théo Van Rysselberghe, Rik Wouters en Xavier Mellery lived there for a time. That way, Établissements Mommen became a unique combination of a factory and a wholesale and retail business for artists’ materials with exhibition areas and studios. Artists were generously pampered. They even used a northerly oriented architectural style for the studios to facilitate the required incidence of light, and all specific requests – up to and including the production of canvases for panoramas – were granted. The resident artists even had a married couple as care- takers. Obviously, it was an extraordinarily attractive meeting point in those days; it was even called ‘Brussels Montmartre’. 32 Born in the north of France, Ernest Blanc-Garin (1843-1916), the painter of – among other works – town- scapes and genre paintings, had permanently settled in Brussels in 1871. In 1883, he opened a studio for female and male students there. They were taught separately: the men had their classrooms on the ground floor, the women on the first floor. For decency’s sake, each classroom had its own entrance. Copyright © Marc Pairon: Impressionism :Hidden Masterpieces of Jean Colin