Gustave Leonard de Jonghe / Belgium, 1829

 Gustave Leonard de Jonghe
(b Kortrijk, Belgium, 1829; d Antwerp, Belgium, 1893) Belgian painter. Jongh was painter and a watercolorist of figures and genera scenes. He started his artistic training with his father, Jean-Baptist de Jonghe. After his parents died, the young Jongh was granted a small pension by the Corporation of Curtrai to aid him in his study of paintings. He studied under François-Jean Navez at the Academy of Brussels. Jongh’s painting style was strongly influenced by his friend, and a fellow Belgian painter, Louis Gallait, who also advised Jongh on many of his career decisions. Although Jongh started his career painting historical and sacred subject matter, he is famous for his genre paintings with bourgeois themes and rich materials. In 1855, he became in the direct successor of the renowned Belgian painter, Alfred Stevens, in Paris. His painting, “The Birthday Wishes” was exhibited at the Royal Academy of London in 1875.