Gustave Léonard de Jonghe

Gustave Léonard de Jonghe, Gustave Léonard De Jonghe or Gustave de Jonghe (4 February 1829 - 28 January 1893) was a Belgian painter known for his glamorous society portraits and genre scenes.

Gustave Léonard de Jonghe was born in Kortrijk as the son of the prominent landscape painter Jan Baptiste de Jonghe. He received his first art lessons from his father. He continued his studies in Brussels at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts where leading Belgian painter François-Joseph Navez was one of his teachers. The history painter Louis Gallait was his close friend and mentor. When de Jonghe’s father died when he was only 15 years old, his native city granted him a scholarship.

From 1848 onwards de Jonghe participated in the exhibitions of the Brussels Salon. De Jonghe emigrated to Paris and began to exhibit at the Parisian Salons in the 1850s. He became a popular painter of elegant woman and group portraits of the bourgeoisie. He usually preferred interior settings, in which he represented several fashionable details of the period.

In the 1870s, the artist repeatedly shuttled between Paris and Brussels. The onset of blindness in 1882 following a cerebral haemorrhage ended his artistic career and he returned to Brussels. Leading Belgian and French artists in Paris organized a charity art sale to support the ailing artist and his family. De Jonghe died in 1893 in Antwerp where he had resided since 1884.

De Jonghe was twice awarded a medal for his work: he received in 1862 a first-class medal in Amsterdam and in 1863 a third-class medal at the Paris Salon. In 1864, Belgian King Leopold I honoured him with the Order of Leopold.

His early works explored historical and religious subject matter such as his composition The Pilgrims of 1854 (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium). He then changed to the painting of portraits and genre scenes and the occasional landscape. He worked in oil as well as watercolour. While some of his works are found in international museums such as the Hermitage and the Musée d'Orsay, most of his work is held in private collections.

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