Although his parents originally intended for him to become a printer, they eventually gave in to his wishes and he was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp),[1] where he studied with Gustaf Wappers and Ferdinand de Braekeleer the Elder.

He continued his studies in Leuven where he was influenced by the works of Ludolf Bakhuizen and Adriaen van de Velde and chose to focus on maritime scenes.

Still, he was dissatisfied with what he had seen so, in 1838, he left on a long sea voyage that would take him to Gibraltar, the North African coast, Egypt, the Dardanelles, Istanbul (where he remained for several months), Asiatic Turkey and Rhodes.

[1] While in Ankara, he met and befriended his fellow Belgian painter, Florent Mols, and they continued travelling together; sailing down the Nile as far as Nubia.

In 1843, he succeeded Jean-Baptiste De Jonghe as head of the landscape painting classes at the Antwerp Academy, where some of his best-known students were Emile Claus, Frans Hens and Adriaan Jozef Heymans.