Jongkind was born in 1819 in Lattrop in Holland, the eighth child of a family of ten, he spent all his childhood in the port of Vlaardingen on the Meuse, west of Rotterdam, where his father was named tax collector.
In 1835 he left school and worked as a notary clerk.

After the death of his father in 1836, whom he saw as a deliverance, he went to The Hague to study art at the Academy of Arts before studying in the studio of landscape master Andreas Schelfhout (1837).
Until 1845, he followed a solid training as a landscape painter in the Dutch tradition immersed in the works of masters of the Golden Age of Dutch painting (17th).
At the beginning of the 19th century, Dutch artists revisit their history and bring up to date the painting of Vermeer, Backhuysen, Van der Neer, Van de Velde the Younger ... Jongkind paints ports, boats, mills, winter scenes ... realistically in the continuity of the Dutch naturalists.

Eugène Isabey, leader of the French Romantic School, remarked him on a trip to the Netherlands in 1845 and took him back to Paris. Jongkind will distance himself from Dutch academicism.
He will work in Isabey's studio, and study in Picot's studio. He will also contact many painters, especially those of the Barbizon School.

While one might have expected him to paint the triumphant and monumental Paris, that of the vast horizons, Jongkind will take a fresh look at Paris and focus on painting moments of Paris taken from life. close-ups with new language, research and rare control of brightness.

Jongkind develops an innovative way of working: in the field, he draws quick watercolor sketches where touches of color make it possible to grasp the fleeting impressions, which he annotates any written precisions. In the studio, he executes, according to his sketches and his memories, more constructed canvases. He also innovates by brightening his palette and by introducing luminous keys to make the effects changing (reflections, skies ...)

When his mother died in 1855, Jongkind returns to Holland in Rotterdam, where he returned to more traditional landscapes. Until April 1860, he maintained a correspondence with his picture dealer, Father Martin, until his return to Paris. Jongkind regularly sends pictures to Paris, and Martin makes regular shipments of 100 francs in Rotterdam.

In 1960, Jongkind returns to live in Paris and will live in France until the end of his life. He moved to 9 (later became 5) rue de Chevreuse in Paris, in the district of Montparnasse, the house that he will keep until his death.

In 1862, he met Boudin and Monet, with whom he painted in Le Havre. Monet wrote about Jongkind that he was after Boudin his master and that he owes him "the definitive education of his eye".

This Norman period of Jongkind places it as the precursor of the impressionism that will remain for the history of art. His camaraderie with Manet and Monet during stays at the farm Saint-Siméon in Honfleur, where they found a school, also justify this title, which he deserves just as much when he paints far from the sea in the Nivernais or Dauphiné.

In August 1873, Jongkind discovered Dauphine.

In 1878, he came to live in La Côte-Saint-André to lead a peaceful existence. He produces, in his Dauphinoise period, many watercolors. He is no longer required to paint on command, he is in contact with the inhabitants and the peasants he sketches. However, the alcohol abuse and heightened sensitivity led him to be interned at the asylum of insane Saint-Egreve, where he died on February 9, 1891.