From the twelfth to the twenty-fourth year of his life, Jean Colin studied art at the Anderlecht drawing school, with – among others – S’Jonghers, De Keyzer and Baeten as his teachers 1 . Infor- mation about the years 1890-1894 is missing, but we know that from October 1894 until 1897 Colin received tuition in Dessin objets industriels [Design engineering], and that during the school year 1898-1899 he followed the course in Torse antique-dessin [ Drawing from antique busts], for which he received a second honourable mention. In that same year, he received tuition in Peinture decora- tive [Decorative painting] and Composition [Composition], for which he received a third honourable mention as well as first prize5. In 1899-1900, the lessons Peinture nature [Drawing from nature] and Figure antique [From antique figures] followed and he finished the course Histoire du costume [History of costume] with a first honourable mention. In 1900-1901, Colin perfected himself in the Figure antique and started the lessons Peinture d’après nature [Drawing from nature], which yielded him a joint honorary place for ‘composition’. During the school year 1901-1902, Colin attended Modelage tête antique [Moulding from antique heads]6. 1 The only person on this short list about whom we were able to retrieve sufficient information is Ernest S’Jonghers (1886-1931), whose name is linked to a municipal square in Anderlecht, where in 1887 he became a designer-architect at the Office of Public Works, after which he was appointed municipal architect. Among other buildings, he was the architect of the Justice of the Peace Court. In 1905, Jean signed up at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts [Royal Academy of Fine Arts] in Brussels, where he was taught by the versatile artist Isidore Verheyden 2 during the last year of the latter’s life. Verheyden belonged to the second generation of Realist painters in Belgium, but he also regularly embarked on impressionistic experiments. Jean Colin looked up to that master for the rest of his life and also developed a wide range of talents himself, by painting – for example – landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, figures and family scenes. Yet, in order to earn a living as an artist, Colin, like Verheyden, was to produce commissioned portraits during the whole of his career. For all those who want to make their passion into a profession, this was part of the compromises. Isidore Verheyden’s career as a teacher at the Brussels Académie was short-lived. In 1900, he was appointed as the first teacher of ‘drawing from nature’. In 1904, he got a four-year contract as Director, but he died a year later, in 1905, Jean’s first school year at the academy. Nevertheless, Colin often referred to his teacher Isidore Verheyden in the press as if he had been taught by this man for many years, because his teaching and his oeuvre had made a deep impression on him. He would continue to ‘adore’ him throughout his career. 2 Isidore Verheyden (1846-1905), a versatile Belgian painter. His circle of friends included a large number of Belgian modernist artists of the time, such as James Ensor (1860-1949), Théo Van Rysselberghe (1862-1926) and Anna Boch (1848-1936). Copyright © Marc Pairon: Impressionism :Hidden Masterpieces of Jean Colin