Van der Weyden was born in Boston, and won a scholarship to the Slade School in London when he was 19. He then studied at the Académie Julien in Paris in 1890-91, and was one of a number of American artists living and working in Paris, including Sargent, Whistler, Cassatt and Homer. He exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900, which the New York Times described as ‘unquestionably the finest collection of works by American artists that ever before has been brought together.’