Training in his teens in watercolour painting, he found work in the relatively new art of lithography when the first press was set up in Tournai.

Day and Haghe created and printed lithographs dealing with a wide range of subjects, such as hunting scenes, architecture, topographical views and genre depictions.

Possibly his most ambitious project was providing 250 images for David Roberts' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia printed between 1842 and 1849.

From the mid-1850s Haghe concentrated more on his watercolours, and gained a reputation for his architectural scenes of northern Europe, with his pictures bought and displayed by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

He died at Stockwell Road, in south London, on 9 March 1885 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.