 In Rome Kessels taught the Liege sculptors Louis Jehotte (c. 1803-84) and Eugene Simonis, who exerted an influence through their teaching at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.Another student of Kessels was the Dutch sculptor Johannes Antonius van der Ven, who sculpted his funeral stone.Mattieu Kessels died in Rome while he was working on "Saint Michael overcoming the Hydra of Anarchy" for the church of Saint Gudula, now Brussels cathedral.