Biography

Willems was born at Liège. He had no regular tuition in painting, but learnt by copying and restoring old pictures at Mechelen

Mechelen

Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...

, where he lived from 1832. He made his debut at the Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 Salon in 1842 with a Music Party and an Interior of a 17th-century Guard-room in the style of Gerard ter Borch

Gerard ter Borch

Gerard ter Borch was a Dutch genre painter, who lived in the Dutch Golden Age.-Biography:Gerard ter Borch was born in December 1617 in Zwolle in the province of Overijssel in the Dutch Republic....

 and Gabriel Metsu

Gabriel Metsu

Gabriël Metsu was a Dutch painter of history paintings, genre works and portraits.- Life :Metsu was the son of the Flemish painter Jacques Metsu , who lived most of his days at Leiden, and Jacomijntje Garniers, his third wife, whom he married in 1625. Jacomijntje was the widow of a painter with...

. Soon afterwards he settled in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where his pictures enjoyed considerable popularity under the Second French Empire

Second French Empire

The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...

. Among his most famous works may be mentioned The Wedding Dress (Brussels Gallery), La Fete des grands-parents (Brussels Gallery), Le Baise-main (Mme. Cardon's collection, Brussels), Farewell (Willems coll., Brussels), The Arches of the Peace (Delahaye coll., Antwerp) and The Widow (engraved by Desvachez). He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine

Neuilly-sur-Seine

Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...

.

He is well-known in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, good examples of his works being in the Metropolitan Museum (New York)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, the Art Institute of Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...

, and other public and private collections.
His favorite subjects are taken from the seventeenth century.