Observations of the black hole binary XTE J1859+226 revealed an unexpected optical re-brightening. Images were taken with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) using ALFOSC on Jul 13-14, the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) with ACAM on Aug 8 and the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) with WFC on Aug 19 at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain. The target is found ~1 magnitude brighter than its quiescence level of R=22.48 +- 0.07 as reported in Zurita et al.