Virginie Bovie

Bovie was born in Brussels and studied drawing first under Frans-Karel Deweirdt (1799–1855) before becoming part of the painting atelier of Antoine Wiertz (1806–1865), whose "megalomanic conceptions" she is said to have picked up.^[3] From 1850 forward, she regularly exhibited her works at the annual salons of Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent.^[4] These were historical and allegorical scenes, portraits or genre pieces.^[5] By the time she was 30, Bovie had executed two large-scale paintings for her parish church.^[6]

She began a tour of Italy in 1855 with her older sister, Louise Bovie, a writer whose collected stories were published posthumously in 1870.^[7] Of the 300 Belgian painters, sculptors, engravers, and architects who traveled to Italy to study during the period 1830–1914, only five are thought to have been women; Bovie is one of three whose presence there is attested with certainty. She visited Rome, Florence, Naples, and Venice, obtaining permission to copy paintings in the galleries of Florence^[8] as she did later in Paris at the Louvre, where in 1858 she reproduced The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault.^[9] Bovie painted several works on canvas drawing on Italian subject matter, including Neapolitan Woman with Child (1857),^[10] and exhibited some of these at the 1866 salon in Brussels and the 1879 salon in Antwerp.^[11]

Her father was a rentier capitalist, and Bovie was able to remain financially independent and unmarried throughout her life. She lived in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode and Ixelles, suburbs of Brussels that were favored by artists. She built a grand maison at 208 rue de Trône, Ixelles, and had Musée Bovie carved into one of the foundation stones. She lived there for many years with Louise, who also never married, and used the house as exhibition space. Her cousin Félix Bovie, a painter, and the sculptor Antoine-Félix Bouré also showed their works there.^[12] In an 1873 English-language guide describing a six-day walking tour of Brussels, the Musée Bovie was noted as near the Musée Wiertz.^[13]

Bovie persisted with history painting at a time when it had become unfashionable,^[14] but her subject matter shows great variety. Her economic and personal independence enabled her to focus her energies on her career as a painter. The art historian Anne-Marie ten Bokum has conjectured that Bovie was a lesbian.^[15]

Virginie and Louise had a third sister, Hortence or Hortense, who married François-Joachim-Alexandre Rouen and appears to have outlived him and both her sisters.^[16]

Upon Bovie's death, the state declined the bequest of her musée and allowed its contents to be auctioned off.^[17] A catalogue for the auction, held in February 1889, was compiled by Jules de Brauwere.^[18]