Joseph Chrétien Nicolié (Belgian, 1791-1854)
Joseph-Chrétien Nicolié was a Belgian painter.Nicolié was the son of an Antwerp art dealer. From 1811 to 1813, he conducted architectural studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. However, his career focused on painting and, more specifically, painting church interiors. Representations of the interior of St. James's Church, the church where P.P. Rubens is buried, are often found in his oeuvre.
His style was romantic, his painting technique high, his portrayal exactly. The church interior was a genre that was practiced by few other artists in Belgium on a regular basis: Jules-Victor Genisson, Jan Geeraerts, André-Joseph Minguet, Bernard Neyt and Joseph Maswiens. He exhibited his works in the salons of his time: large group exhibitions by living artists. In Belgium, those of Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent were especially important. But he also exhibited in those of Douai, Mechelen and Lille. In 1817, King Willem I purchased an “Interior of the Saint James Church” for the Museum of Brussels (disappeared) .Nicolié lived in Rue Pelgrim (ca. 1824), Havestraat 2934 (ca. 1833) and Sint-Willibrords 196 (ca. 1849) .His son Paul Emile Nicolié (°1828) also became a painter.