Gustave De Jonghe

Biography of Gustave De Jonghe ( 1829-1893 )

Born in 1829 in Kortrijk, Belgium, Gustave Léonard de Jonghe was the son of the renowned landscape painter Jan-Baptiste de Jonghe, from whom he received his first artistic training and developed a taste for meticulous draftsmanship. Following his father’s death in 1844, he was granted a stipend by the Corporation of Kortrijk to continue his studies in painting. He subsequently moved to Brussels and enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied in particular under the history painters François-Joseph Navez and Louis Gallait.

From 1848 onwards, he took part in the exhibitions of the Brussels Salon, where he distinguished himself through the assurance of his line and the refinement of his colour. His early works belong to an anecdotal genre painting sometimes tinged with a certain sentimentalized realism. Settling in Paris in the mid-1850s, he exhibited regularly at the Salon for nearly thirty years and quickly became known for his portraits of elegant women and his bourgeois family scenes. Set within carefully rendered, luxurious interiors, these works demonstrate his keen powers of observation and technical mastery, presenting an elegant and intimate world centred on the female figures of high society. In this respect, his work is often associated with that of his compatriot Alfred Stevens, whose successor in Paris he was sometimes considered to be.

At the same time, De Jonghe retained the memory of his father’s landscape practice and, from 1859 onwards, made several stays at the Auberge Ganne in Barbizon, where he painted directly from nature in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Although he presented a landscape at his first participation in the Paris Salon in 1861, he subsequently devoted himself primarily to genre painting and portraiture.

A highly appreciated and sought-after painter, Gustave de Jonghe enjoyed numerous successes in international exhibitions. He was awarded a first-class medal in Amsterdam in 1862, followed by a medal at the Paris Salon in 1863. His career was also officially recognised in Belgium when King Leopold II appointed him Knight of the Order of Leopold in 1872.

In 1882, a cerebral haemorrhage left him blind and abruptly brought his artistic career to an end, forcing him to leave Paris and return to Brussels. In a gesture of support, several of his close associates—including the painters Alfred Stevens and Constantin Meunier, as well as the French artists Léon Bonnat, Jules Breton, and the writer Joris-Karl Huysmans—organised a major charity sale in 1886 for the benefit of the artist and his family, once again attesting to the esteem and renown he enjoyed within the artistic world.