Louise Leghait
Louise Leghait, also known as Louise Le Ghait (9 September 1821 - 22 April 1874), was a Belgian photographer active during the 1850s in Brussels and Paris. She is considered to be the first Belgian woman who worked as an amateur photographer.
Also recorded as Madame Leghait · Louise Le Ghait
Louise Leghait
- Name
- Louise Leghait
- Birth Name
- Louise Félicité Julie Reynders
- Born
- 9 September 1821
- Birthplace
- Brussels
- Died
- 22 April 1874 (aged 52)
- Place of death
- Paris
- Occupation
- Photographer
- Full name
- Louise Félicité Julie Reynders.
- Nationality
- Belgium and United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Louise Leghait, also known as Louise Le Ghait (9 September 1821 - 22 April 1874), was a Belgian photographer active during the 1850s in Brussels and Paris. She is considered to be the first Belgian woman who worked as an amateur photographer.
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Note VALÉORINE
Louise Leghait (1821–1874) was a photographer and a national of Belgium and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Born Louise Félicité Julie Reynders in Brussels, the photographer died in 8th arrondissement of Paris. Louise Leghait was a member of Société française de photographie and lived in Brussels and Paris.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
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Authority files
wikidata · Q96474275 · wikipedia · Louise Leghait
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Louise Leghait • Other Names — Louise Le Ghait • Birth Name — Louise Félicité Julie Reynders • Born — 9 September 1821 • Birthplace — Brussels • Died — 22 April 1874 (aged 52) • Place of death — Paris • Occupation — Photographer • Years Active — 1850s
Personal life
Personal life
Louise Félicité Julie Reynders was born on 9 September 1821 in Brussels. She was the daughter of Jean Paul Ferdinand Reynders, a Brussels-based merchant born in Amsterdam in 1795 who married in Tournai in 1818. In 1840, at the age of eighteen, she married Gustave Nicolas François Leghait, a landowner, in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode and had three children with him: Alfred (1841) who became the Belgian Ambassador to France in 1903, Jenny (1843) and Raoul (1845).
Later life
Later life
Her youngest son Raoul died in 1871, aged only twenty-five, and her husband died the following year. Louise Leghait died two years later at her home at 12 rond-point des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 22 April 1874.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions
• November 1981 - February 1982. La Femme artiste: d'Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun à Rosa Bonheur, Mont-de-Marsan, musée Despiau-Wlérick, donjon Lacataye • 4 October 2015 - 24 January 2016. Qui a peur des femmes photographes? Paris, musée d'Orsay, musée de l'Orangerie. Works lent by the Société française de photographie.
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
Louise Leghait was recorded at birth as Louise Félicité Julie Reynders. The authorities additionally record the headings Madame Leghait, Louise Le Ghait and Louise Leghait.
Identity
Identity
Louise Leghait is recorded as photographer.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1821
Louise Leghait was born in 1821 at Brussels.
1874
Louise Leghait died in 1874 at 8th arrondissement of Paris.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Brussels and Paris.
Residences
Brussels.
Birth place
8th arrondissement of Paris.
Death place
Photography
In the mid-1850s, Louise Leghait emerged as a photographer in Brussels under the name Madame Leghait. She is considered to be Belgium's first female calotypist and amateur photographer. In 1856, she became the first woman member of the Société française de photographie. Shortly afterwards, she was awarded a medal at the l'Exposition des arts industriels de Bruxelles (Brussels Industrial Arts Exhibition), along with her male counterparts Constant Delessert, Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard and Louis Adolphe Humbert de Molard. The following year, she presented a series of photographic views of Mechelen, Brussels and Antwerp on at the second exhibition of the Société française de photographie. The press noted that Belgium was represented by "une dame, un artiste véritable, Mme Leghait, tient le premier rang" (Mme Leghait, a woman and artist of first rank), praised her technical skill, "all the more remarkable in a woman of the world who is guided only by her love of art" stating that she "exhibited pieces that closely resemble English photographs in terms of finesse and sharpness of line". After this date, few traces of her work remain.
Collections
Prints held by the Société française de photographie.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Acte de mariage n° 46 du 11 août 1840, Saint-Josse-ten-Node, Archives de l'État, Belgique.
- 2.Hélène Bocard, Louise Leghait, in Luce Lebart et Marie Robert (dir.), Une histoire mondiale des femmes photographes, Éditions Textuel, 2020, p. 37
- 3.Le Ghait, Louise (Madame) - FoMu. fomu.atomis.be.
- 4.Société française de photographie. Bulletin de la Société française de photographie. 325. 1856.
- 5.Qui a peur des femmes photographes ? 1839 à 1919. site du Musée de l'Orangerie.
- 6.Chronique. 260. March 1856.
- 7.Marie-Christine Claes, J. B. A. M. Jobard (1792-1861): visionnaire de nouveaux rapports entre l'art et l'industrie, acteur privilégié des mutations de l'image en Belgique au XIX e siècle, thèse présentée pour l'obtention du grade de docteur en Philosophie et Lettres; Promoteur: Professeur Ralph Dekoninck, Université Catholique de Louvain, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Département d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'Art, Louvain-la-Neuve, année académique 2006-2007, .
- 8.F.-B. Boisdenier. Exposition annuelle de la Société française de photographie (suite). 3. 15 March 1857.
- 9.Société française de photographie. Bulletin de la Société française de photographie. 267. 1857.
- 10.Faucheux. Exposition de la Société française de photographie in Revue universelle des arts. Gallica. 69. 1857.
- 11.Généalogie de Raoul Fernand Victor Leghait. Geneanet.
- 12.Généalogie de Gustave Nicolas François Leghait. Geneanet.
- 13.Décès et inhumations. 4. 1874-04-27.
- 14.Tirages LEGHAIT 0242.pdf.
- 15.Du Brésil au Musée d'Orsay, près de 80 images de la SFP ont été prêtées pour des expositions en 2015 - COLLECTION SFP. sfp.asso.fr.
References
Citations
References
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reference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Died at
1- 8th arrondissement of ParisPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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