Painter of historical scenes, portraits, marines and landscapes. Jules Cran was educated at the academy in Brussels, where he was taught by Joseph Stallaert (1825-1903) and Jean François Portaels (1818-1895) among others. He greatly admired the painters of the Renaissance and French Romantic painters such as Delacroix, Ingres and Géricault, whose work he studied in the Louvre in Paris. Initially, Cran painted great epic works, on canvas and as murals, but later, in the period 1901-1920, he gained fame mainly as a portraitist.