Henri de Braekeleer

Henri Jean Augustin de Braekeleer was a Belgian painter. He was born and died in Antwerp. He was trained in drawing by his father Ferdinand de Braekeleer, a well-known genre painter, and his uncle Jan August Hendrik Leys. Braekeleer entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) in 1854. Although he remained a student there until 1861, he publicly exhibited his paintings for the first time in 1858, when Reaper and Washerwoman were shown at the Antwerp Salon. In 1863, he went to Germany and, in 1864, to the Netherlands, studying works by 16th- and 17th-century painters in both countries. The influence of Johannes Vermeer was especially important, seen in one of de Braekeleer's most characteristic subjects: a single person absorbed in a quiet activity, shown in an interior lit by a window.