Hendrik Frans Schaefels

He worked in the Romantic style popular in Belgium in the mid nineteenth century and was highly esteemed in Europe for his representations of historic naval battles.

[2] His older brother Lucas Victor Schaefels (1824–1885) became a successful still life painter and draughtsman and a teacher at the Antwerp Academy.

He was friends with leading Antwerp artists and intellectuals such as Hendrik Conscience, Jan Lambrecht Domien Sleeckx, Max Rooses, Frans Van Kuyck and Peter Benoit.

His early work, which was influenced by Jan Michiel Ruyten, consisted mainly of cityscapes of Antwerp and genre scenes.

Belgian Romantic painters such as Gustaf Wappers, Nicaise de Keyser, Edouard Hamman and Louis Gallait gained international success with their history paintings.

[8][9] Schaefles also painted in his early career a number of genre scenes such as Admiring the newborn (1857, auctioned at Christie's on 19–20 September 2006 in Amsterdam, lot 204).

[10][11] He was one of various Belgian graphic artists such as Adolf Dillens and Félicien Rops who provided illustrations to the second edition of 'The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak' published in Paris in 1869.

[4] His drawings include studies of all types of ships, cutters, shock cherry, clubs, people on the docks, the wharf, the dockyards and the first steamships such as the 'British Queen' and 'Baron Osy'.