Charles Soubre

Early life and training

Charles Joseph Soubre was born on 4 February 1821 in Liège.^[1][2] His father, Jean Joseph Soubre (1788–1864), was a music dealer;^[3] his mother was Marie Françoise Hubertine Thiriard (1791–1861).^[1][4][5] His brother Étienne Soubre became a composer.^[6]

In 1834 Soubre began studying in the studio of the landscape painter Jules Van Marcke.^[7][8] From 1837 to 1843 he attended the Liège Academy of Fine Arts, where his teachers included Barthélemy Vieillevoye [fr], Gilles-François Closson, Lambert Herman, and Auguste Chauvin.^[9][10][11] He won first prizes for painting and historical composition there,^[7] and supported himself by giving lessons.^[7] He completed his training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.^{[8][10][11][12]}

He exhibited his first landscape in 1837 after a season at Remouchamps with Van Marcke.^[7] From 1839 he began showing at the principal Belgian salons, at first sending landscapes: Sunken Lane near Liège at the 1839 Brussels Salon,^[13] View of the Banks of the Aîne in the Ardennes at the 1840 Antwerp Salon,^[14] and Landscape; Souvenir of the Ardennes at the 1842 Brussels Salon.^[15]

In 1844 he exhibited his first historical canvas at the Ghent Salon: The Return from Palestine, depicting a Liège knight's homecoming after the Crusades.^[7][16] The work was shown again at the 1845 Brussels Salon.^[17]

The Darchis foundation offered him a travel scholarship, but family circumstances prevented him from accepting it. He never left Liège for extended study abroad, instead developing his skills through independent work.^[7]

Early career (1845–1854)

Soubre increasingly concentrated on historical subjects.^[7][10][11] His first notable success came in 1847 with The Burghers of Liège Storming the Home of Mayor Ghaye to Demand the Insignia of the Magistracy.^[7]

The painting shows an episode from the Liège Revolution: a crowd storms the home of mayor Philippe-François de Ghaye, demanding the keys of the magistracy. When Ghaye refuses, a burgher threatens him with a sword. The chief registrar Cologne intercepts the blow and, though wounded in the leg, saves the mayor.^[18] The painting was later used—under the title A Violent Attack^[19]—as the cover illustration for Georgette Heyer's short-story collection Pistols for Two (Arrow Books, 2005).^[20]

At the 1848 Brussels Salon Soubre showed Henri de Dinant, Liège Tribune Departing for Exile. A review noted that while the colouring was "somewhat commonplace", the composition and drawing were strong, and the costumes historically faithful.^[21]

In 1850 he presented Death of Henry IV, German Emperor at the Liège salon.^[7] The following year he exhibited The Awakening of Montaigne at the Brussels Salon, which was well received by critics.^[22] The painting illustrates an anecdote from Michel de Montaigne's childhood: his father had him wakened each morning by music rather than abruptly, so as not to disturb his young mind.^[23] Soubre exhibited the work again at the 1852 Antwerp Salon^[24] and produced a smaller second version in 1862, which was sold to a private collector.^[25][26] At the 1854 Brussels Salon he showed The Last Boatload of Hay.^[27]

In 1853 Soubre married Eugénie Françoise Josephine Cajot.^[7] They had two daughters: Françoise (born June 1854)^[28][29] and Eugénie (born January 1857).^[30][31]

Professorship and mature work (1854–1889)

Exhibitions and sales

Alongside teaching, Soubre maintained an active exhibition schedule. He continued to produce historical scenes but also painted landscapes and genre works. In 1855 he showed Angelica and the Enchanted Horse, drawn from Orlando Furioso, at the Antwerp Salon.^[45] In 1857 at the Brussels Salon he exhibited Dream of an Arab Chief, Led by the Daughters of the Sea to the Conquest of the Blue Island,^[46] inspired by a tale from One Thousand and One Nights.^[47] The work was purchased by the Paris publisher Goupil & Cie and engraved by Jean-Baptiste-Alfred Cornilliet [fr], broadening Soubre's reputation.^[7][47] At the 1860 Brussels Salon he showed The Madness of Ophelia.^[48][49]

From 1861 onward his exhibition pace quickened, becoming nearly annual for over twenty years. He appeared at the Brussels Salon (1863, 1866, 1869, 1872, 1875, 1878, 1881, 1884), the Antwerp Salon (1864, 1867, 1873, 1876, 1879), the Ghent Salon (1865, 1868, 1871, 1874, 1877, 1880, 1883, 1889), and internationally at the Paris Salon (1861, 1863), the London International Exhibitions (1872, 1873, 1874), the Vienna World's Fair (1873), the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876), the Sydney International Exhibition (1879–1880), and the Historical Exhibition of Belgian Art (1880). He received a gold medal at the 1866 Brussels Salon^[51][52] and a bronze medal at Sydney.^[53] He was made a knight of the Order of Leopold on 7 February 1879.^[54][55]

Several of Soubre's works were acquired by British collectors.^[7] The Awakening of Montaigne, A Burial in the Ardennes, and Lady Macbeth were sold in Dublin; Catherine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey, Mary Stuart, Departure for the Hunt, The Banquet of the Beggars, and Lady Nottingham and Elizabeth in London; and a later copy of The Banquet of the Beggars in Manchester.^[7] Other works travelled further: Convalescent was sold in Kyiv and Proud Humility in Sydney.^[7]

Some paintings remained in Belgian collections: the Execution of Pierre de Bex, Former Mayor of Liège belonged to Baron Rodolphe de Lamberts-Cortenbach;^[56] A Noble Family Before the Council of Troubles and The Departure of the Liège Volunteers for Brussels Led by Charles Rogier entered Liège's public collections;^[57][58] and La Måle Saint-Martin was acquired by the Belgian royal family.^[59]

Engravings and reproductions

Soubre's reputation was extended by engraved and photographic reproductions of his work.^[7] His major paintings were reproduced in artistic publications in France, Germany, and England. Engravers who reproduced his work included Charles Baugniet (portrait of M. Du Vivier, 1859),^[60] Edmond Fierlants [fr] (photographic reproduction of The Banquet of the Beggars),^[61] Émile Tasset [fr] (photogravures for the Franklin Society of Liège album, 1877),^[62][63][64] Jean-Baptiste-Alfred Cornilliet,^[7] and Pierre Cottin [fr] for the house of Goupil & Cie.^[65]

Family

Soubre's first wife, Eugénie Cajot, died in December 1861.^[66][67] On 11 August 1863 he married Marie Christine Wurth (1828–1908), his first wife's niece.^[68][69][70] They had two daughters: Madilène Jeanne (known as Madeleine),^[71][72] born in March 1865,^[73][74] and Marguerite Caroline, born in June 1869, who died at just over a year old.^{[75][76][77][78][79]}

Soubre's eldest daughter, Françoise, married the engineer Albert Battaille on 28 December 1878. Battaille was the son of Jean Battaille, an engineer in the Russian Empire, and Marie Straatman, daughter of the Brussels shipowner Lambert Straatman.^[70][80][81] They had three children.^[70]

On 26 April 1879, his second daughter Eugénie married the painter Émile Delperée [fr] (born Daxhelet), a former pupil of Soubre's at the academy.^{[70][82][83][84]} They had two children.^[70]

His third daughter, Madeleine (1865–1922), became a painter of flowers. She exhibited with her father at the Ghent Salon of 1883^[71] and at the 1884 Brussels Salon,^[72] and participated in several exhibitions at the Royal Circle of Fine Arts of Liège.^[10] In 1898 she married the artillery lieutenant Henri Dupont, who commanded the Meuse fortifications during the defence of Liège in 1914. Dupont was taken prisoner by the Germans in April 1915 and held at Blankenbourg until the Armistice.^[85][86]

Final years (1889–1895)

Soubre resigned his teaching post on 11 February 1889 and was named honorary professor in recognition of his service.^[87] He was replaced in drawing "after the live model" by Adrien de Witte and in painting by his son-in-law, Émile Delperée.^[41][87] His former pupils held a celebration in his honour at the academy on 27 June 1889, presenting him with an album of 42 drawings.^[88]

Soubre died unexpectedly on 29 January 1895^[1][2][54] and was buried in Robermont Cemetery in Liège.^[89]

Style

Charles Soubre was primarily a painter of historical subjects, genre scenes, portraits, landscapes, and female nudes.^{[10][11][12][90]} He is associated with the Romantic movement.^[8]

As a landscape painter, Soubre worked en plein air and had a taste for large formats unusual for the period, according to the art critic and museum curator Jules Bosmant.^[91] He ranged widely in search of subjects, from Grand-Halleux to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Bosmant considered that Soubre "tended to see broadly, and rather as a decorator concerned with overall effect and balance, than with the truth of atmosphere and milieu".^[91] The art historian André Marchal concurred, noting Soubre's "pursuit of balanced masses, an organisation of planes and decorative synthesis".^[92]

The few nudes Soubre produced late in his career were, in Bosmant's words, "most chaste and quite inoffensive".^[93] They were unusual in being set in open-air décors with streams and trees surrounding female figures.^[93] When Soubre exhibited these works—considered audacious in provincial Liège at the end of the 19th century—a local newspaper rebuked him for neglecting "the moral duties of a professor at the Academy".^[93]

As a history painter, Bosmant wrote, Soubre brought "a serious spirit and gifts as a colourist which, at that time at least, were not negligible", and he drew more from local history and legend than any of his contemporaries.^[94] The art historian David Bronze observed that Soubre and his son-in-law Émile Delperée "perpetuate as best they can the tradition of history painting in Liège".^[95]

Soubre also produced decorative works. Around 1860 he painted a series of eight murals in the Edmond Hustinx room of the Vrijthof Theatre in Maastricht, personifying the four seasons and the four elements.^[96][97][98]

Principal works

Death of Henry IV, German Emperor (1850)

Commissioned by the city of Liège,^[7][99] this painting was a success when exhibited at the Liège Salon in 1850.^[7] It depicts the final moments of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who died in Liège on 7 August 1106. Having been deposed and betrayed by his son Henry V, the emperor took refuge in Liège. Surrounded by the few friends who remained loyal, he died forgiving his son and placed the imperial insignia—a ring, a sword, and a crown—in the hands of Otbert, Bishop of Liège.^[99] The house on Féronstrée where Henry IV died bears the inscription "Here died Henry IV".^[99]

Victor Pisani (1866)

Exhibited at the 1866 Brussels Salon, this painting earned Soubre a gold medal.^[51][52] The subject is taken from the history of the Venetian Republic: the admiral Victor Pisani, imprisoned after a setback during the War of Chioggia against Genoa, is released at the demand of the Venetian people when the city itself comes under threat. He takes up his sword once more, swearing to set aside the injustice done to him for the sake of the fatherland.^[100]

The Journal des beaux-arts of 30 September 1866 praised the work: "One of the finest episodes in the history of Venice inspired M. Soubre to a fine composition. Pisani forgetting the injustice of his compatriots to save his fatherland is a subject worthy of the artist in question. The admiral is well placed; the gesture by which he clasps ... the hand of a faithful friend placed behind him is very felicitous."^[101]

Proud Humility (1871)

The painting was shown at the 1871 Ghent Salon^[102] and the 1872 London International Exhibition.^[103] It illustrates an episode from Canto XI of Dante's Purgatorio: the Sienese nobleman Provenzano Salvani, needing to raise ten thousand florins to ransom a friend held by Charles of Anjou, humbles himself by begging in the great square of Siena.^[102][104]

A review in La Meuse on 13 July 1863 described the composition: "In the foreground of the painting the noble Salvani ... is kneeling before the carpet spread out to receive the gifts of passers-by ... Reading in this man's features the nobility of the feelings that animate him, one understands that this is no ordinary beggar, but a great lord."^[105] The review noted that a canvas on the same subject, titled Provenzano Salvani Begging for his Friend's Ransom, appeared at the 1863 Brussels Salon.^[104] It is unclear whether the 1871 Proud Humility is the same painting or a second version.^[25]

A Noble Family Before the Council of Troubles (1873)

Soubre exhibited this work at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair^[106] and the 1874 London International Exhibition^[107] before it was acquired by the city of Liège in 1875.^[57][99] Reproductions were made by wood engraving^[108] and photogravure.^{[63][64][109]}

The scene is set before the Council of Troubles, the tribunal established by the Duke of Alba to suppress unrest in the Netherlands from 1566. Also known as the Council of Blood, it was responsible for numerous executions; a study published by the Royal Academy of Belgium in 1961 lists 12,302 victims banished or executed between 1567 and 1573.^[110][111]

Jules Bosmant considered the painting to be "of a sufficiently broad historical scope to be situated solely in time", representing "a moment of our Western civilisation". He noted that the "very sober composition, in which gestures are rare and measured, in which there is no theatrical effect, does not lack grandeur".^[91]

La Måle Saint-Martin (1876)

This painting, which entered the Belgian Royal Collection,^[59][112] was sent to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876^[113] and the 1877 Ghent Salon.^[114] It depicts an episode from the 14th-century conflict known as the Måle Saint-Martin: the guilds of Liège, learning that nobles had hidden in houses near St. Hubert, invaded them and killed all those they found. A wealthy woman, Marie de Fooz, saved 150 conspirators hidden in her own house by having the doors opened and welcoming the burghers, urging them to take whatever they needed. Her house was not searched.^[114]

Collections

Works by Charles Soubre are held by La Boverie in Liège,^[99][123] the Museum of Walloon Life,^[124] the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History,^[119] the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry,^[125][126] the Belgian Royal Collection,^[59] and various private collections.^[7][127]

Critical reception

During his lifetime Soubre's work was generally well received by critics and the public.^[7][22][48] His obituary in La Meuse in 1895 described his talent as characterised by "the exquisite tact of feeling, the touching harmony between the idea and the interpretation ... Nothing violent or brutal escaped that caressing brush." It acknowledged, however, that the kind of art Soubre represented had fallen out of fashion.^[7]

In 1995 the historian Micheline Josse wrote that Soubre's compositions, "very much in the spirit of his time", had been highly prized but "today they are often judged too theatrical".^[128] David Bronze, writing in 2001, considered that Soubre's historical works "testify to undeniable qualities as a painter" but "remain very conventional". Bronze found more to admire in Soubre's portraiture, where he showed "real aptitude".^[129]

Soubre's plein air landscapes outlasted the decline of his historical painting. The pursuit of balance, organisation, and synthesis in his landscape work continued to be valued long after his death.^[91][92]

Gallery

• 
  The Roman Blessing of the Harvest, 1853 (oil on canvas; 66 cm × 88 cm), private collection
• 
  The Crucifixion, 1867 (oil on canvas; 74.5 cm × 64 cm), private collection
• 
  The Artist Working en plein air with his Family, 1880 (oil on canvas; 45 cm × 70 cm), private collection
• 
  Musketeer, 1883 (oil on canvas; 75 cm × 55 cm), private collection
• 
  Poachers, before 1895 (oil on canvas; 58 cm × 76 cm), private collection
• 
  The Thirsty Reaper, before 1895 (oil on canvas; 115 cm × 88 cm), private collection
• 
  Seated Man, before 1895 (oil on canvas; 49 cm × 37 cm), private collection
• 
  The String Seller, before 1895 (oil on canvas; 80 cm × 59 cm), private collection
• 
  The Holy Family, 1862 (oil on canvas; 200 cm × 155 cm), Amercœur, chapel of the convent of the Sisters of Hope
• 
  Woman with a Tambourine, 1870 (oil on canvas; 88 cm × 70 cm), private collection
• 
  Lady Macbeth, 1877 (oil on canvas; 114 cm × 85 cm), private collection
• 
  Leda and the Swan, 1880 (oil on panel; diameter 19 cm), private collection
• 
  The Indiscreet One, 1881 (oil on canvas; 69 cm × 45 cm), private collection
• 
  The Widow, 1884 (oil on canvas; 85 cm × 120 cm), private collection
• 
  A Gentleman under Henry III, 1876 (oil on canvas; 62.5 cm × 47.5 cm), private collection

Notable pupils

During the artist's lifetime

To avoid an excessively long listing, only key venues are recorded below. Soubre appeared at the Brussels Salon sixteen times between 1839 and 1884, the Antwerp Salon nine times between 1840 and 1879, and the Ghent Salon ten times between 1844 and 1895. He also exhibited at various Liège salons, the Paris Salon (1861 and 1863), the London International Exhibitions (1872, 1873, 1874), the Vienna World's Fair (1873), the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876), the Sydney International Exhibition (1879–1880), the Historical Exhibition of Belgian Art (1880), and the Royal Circle of Fine Arts of Liège (1893–1895).^[90][145] A complete list of his known exhibition appearances follows below; it is compiled primarily from contemporary Salon catalogues and press notices.

Posthumous exhibitions

• 1895: Charles Soubre Retrospective, March–April, Emulation Hall, Liège;^[7] Inaugural Exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts, 15–29 July, rue des Anglais 21, Liège;^{[189][190][191]} 36th triennial exhibition – Ghent Salon, 1 September – 28 October (posthumous showing of the pastel Young Girl at the Fountain).^[192]
• 1955: Romanticism in the Country of Liège, 10 September – 31 October, Museum of Fine Arts, Liège.^[193][194]
• 1964: 125th Anniversary of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, 11 April – 10 May, Museum of Fine Arts, Liège.^[195]
• 1992: The Royal Circle of Fine Arts of Liège 1892–1992, 18 September – 6 October, Royal Circle of Fine Arts, Liège (catalogue no. 21, Ardennes Landscape).^[196]
• 2001–2002: Towards Modernity: the 19th Century in the Country of Liège, 5 October 2001 – 20 January 2002, Museum of Walloon Art and Saint-Georges Hall, Liège (The Departure of the Liège Volunteers for Brussels Led by Charles Rogier, The Arrival of Charles Rogier and the Liège Volunteers in Brussels, and The Indonesian Woman with the Parasol).^{[197][121][122]}
• 2012: Spirituality, 9 June – 1 July, Rue des Prémontrés 38, Liège.^[198]
• 2018: Liège School of Landscape (1880–1950), 1 August – 2 September, Fléron;^[199] Liège School of Landscape, 27 October – 18 November, Saint-Hubert.^[200]
• 2019: Paintings of Fishing and Rivers, 6–28 July, Chapel of the Sépulcrines, Visé.^[201]
• 2021: June 2021 at the Office… Still More Heintz, 5 June – 4 July, Rue Henri Vieuxtemps 13, Liège (The Beggar Girl).^[202]
• 2024: Quaestus: Art Acquisitions at the Treasury of Liège, 4 July – 6 October, Treasury of Liège Cathedral (The Holy Family, 1862).^[203][204]