[3] The latter established a successful lithographic business; François concentrated on portrait-painting, with the help of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who introduced him to London society.
[2] Simonau supplemented his commissions with a small but flourishing art school in Commercial Road, east of the City of London.
In 1818 her mother, Elizabeth Jones, a wealthy widow, offered Simonau sufficient financial inducement to drop his other students and concentrate entirely on her daughter.
[4] In 1835 the chef Alexis Soyer asked Simonau to paint his portrait; Simoneau delegated the task to his stepdaughter.
[7] According to Grove Art Online, the neo-classical style was predominant in painting in Belgium in Simonau's early years, but he distanced himself from it, partly because of his training with Gros in Paris and partly under the influence of the art of his adopted country: Léonce Bénédite, in La peinture au 19iéme siècle (1909) wrote: Bénédite added that it was perhaps to Gros that Simonau owes the warmth of his colour.