Voiliers à l'entrée du port de Honfleur

Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891)

Voiliers à l'entrée du port de Honfleur (recto); Esquisse d'un voilier sur la mer (verso)

Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819 –1891) was a Dutch painter and printmaker. He painted marine landscapes in a free manner and is regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism.

Jongkind is born in the Netherlands and studied at the art academy in The Hague until 1846 when he moved to Montparnasse in Paris, France where he studied under Eugène Isabey and François-Édouard Picot. Two years later, the Paris Salon accepted his work for its exhibition, and he received acclaim from critic Charles Baudelaire and later on from Émile Zola.

Jongkind returned to live in Rotterdam in 1855, and remained there until 1860. Back in Paris, in 1861 he rented a studio in Montparnasse where some of his paintings began to show glimpses of the Impressionist style to come. In 1862 he met in Normandy, in the famous ferme Saint-Siméon in Honfleur, with some of his artist friends, such as Alfred Sisley, Eugène Boudin, and the young Claude Monet, to all of whom Jongkind served as a mentor. Monet later referred to him as "...a quiet man with such a talent that is beyond words" . In 1863 Jongkind exhibited at the first Salon des Refusés. He was invited to participate in the first exhibition of the Impressionist group in 1874, but he declined.
In 1878, Jongkind and his companion Joséphine Fesser moved to live in the small town of La Côte-Saint-André near Grenoble in the Isère département in the southeast of France. He died in 1891 in Saint-Égrève, in the same département.

Jongkind's most frequent subject was the marine landscape, which he painted both in the Netherlands and in France.His paintings are characterized by vigorous brushwork and strong contrasts.