Then he attended the academy at Antwerp and studied painting under the noted historical romanticists, Nicaise de Keyser (1813-1887) and Gustave Wappers (1803-1874).

His three stays in Algeria (1843, 1844, and 1845) introduced Orientalism into his work focusing on North African landscapes, Arab portraits, Algerian dancers and battle scenes.

In 1847 he married the widow Zoé van Male de Brachene (1807-1848), whose husband, Captain Prosper Renoz, had died in Algeria.

[2] He worked with models both in studios and in exterior settings and his portraits, featuring exotic costumes, jewelry, and dusky sensual looks yet produced with a subtlety of tone and color were greatly prized by European collectors.

[3] He also painted children at play, a popular theme in late nineteenth-century European and American Art as childhood was studied in terms of its significance to personal development and education.

His wealth enabled him to build a Pompeian villa of his own on a piece of land next to the Bois de Boulogne between 1874 and 1877 although the structure is no longer extant.