Jules Ruinart de Brimont, descended from one of the oldest and finest Champagne families, was born in Coblenz in 1838 during a stay his parents made there. From early childhood, he developed a strong taste for drawing; therefore, at the age of fourteen, he entered the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, where he remained for two years. He then studied at the famous Dusseldorff School under Rudolph Jordan (painter of scenes depicting the lives of fishermen on the island of Markeu, in Holland) and Oswald Achenbach, whose talent is too well known and appreciated.
Jules Ruinart left the Dusseldorff School after two years to try his hand at a series of genre paintings, inspired by the customs of Westphalia and the banks of the Rhine. He was then 18 years old. He undertook the Italian voyage, dreamed of by all artists, and stayed six months in Rome, and six months in Naples and Capri. It was then that, captivated by the beauty and marvellous light of the Italian landscapes, and feeling, in this regard, the inadequacy of his studies, Jules Ruinart had the courage to return to Dusseldorff and asked to attend the Academy’s landscape classes.