Charles Joseph Soubre (4 February 1821 – 29 January 1895) was a Belgian history painter and drawing professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Liège.
Soubre trained from 1834 in the studio of the landscape painter Jules Van Marcke, then at the Liège academy under and Gilles-François Closson, and finally at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels. He supported his studies by giving lessons. In 1853 he was appointed professor of drawing at the Liège academy, beginning a teaching career that lasted 35 years. He retired with the title of honorary professor.
Soubre worked primarily as a history painter, drawing subjects from local history and legend, but also produced genre scenes, portraits, landscapes, and female nudes. His major historical canvases include Death of Henry IV, German Emperor (1850), A Noble Family Before the Council of Troubles (1873), La Måle Saint-Martin (1876), and The Departure of the Liège Volunteers for Brussels Led by Charles Rogier (1878). By the end of his life his kind of large-scale historical composition had fallen out of fashion, though his plein air landscapes, marked by balanced composition and decorative synthesis, continued to be valued.
Soubre exhibited extensively: sixteen times at the Brussels Salon between 1839 and 1884, nine times at the Antwerp Salon, ten times at the Ghent Salon, and at international events including the Paris Salon (1861, 1863), the London International Exhibitions (1872–1874), the Vienna World's Fair (1873), the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876), and the Sydney International Exhibition (1879–1880). He received a gold medal at the 1866 Brussels Salon for Victor Pisani and a bronze medal at Sydney.
Biography
Early life and training
Charles Joseph Soubre was born on 4 February 1821 in Liège. His father, Jean Joseph Soubre (1788–1864), was a music dealer; his mother was Marie Françoise Hubertine Thiriard (1791–1861). His brother Étienne Soubre became a composer.
In 1834 Soubre began studying in the studio of the landscape painter Jules Van Marcke. From 1837 to 1843 he attended the Liège Academy of Fine Arts, where his teachers included , Gilles-François Closson, Lambert Herman, and Auguste Chauvin. He won first prizes for painting and historical composition there, and supported himself by giving lessons. He completed his training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.
He exhibited his first landscape in 1837 after a season at Remouchamps with Van Marcke. From 1839 he began showing at the principal Belgian salons, at first sending landscapes: Sunken Lane near Liège at the 1839 Brussels Salon, View of the Banks of the Aîne in the Ardennes at the 1840 Antwerp Salon, and Landscape; Souvenir of the Ardennes at the 1842 Brussels Salon.
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. The work was shown again at the 1845 Brussels Salon.
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.
Early career (1845–1854)
Soubre increasingly concentrated on historical subjects. 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.
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. The painting was later used—under the title A Violent Attack—as the cover illustration for Georgette Heyer's short-story collection Pistols for Two (Arrow Books, 2005).
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.
In 1850 he presented Death of Henry IV, German Emperor at the Liège salon. The following year he exhibited The Awakening of Montaigne at the Brussels Salon, which was well received by critics. 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. Soubre exhibited the work again at the 1852 Antwerp Salon and produced a smaller second version in 1862, which was sold to a private collector. At the 1854 Brussels Salon he showed The Last Boatload of Hay.
In 1853 Soubre married Eugénie Françoise Josephine Cajot. They had two daughters: Françoise (born June 1854) and Eugénie (born January 1857).
Professorship and mature work (1854–1889)
Teaching
Soubre was appointed professor of drawing at the Liège academy in August 1853 and taught there for over 35 years. He began in the elementary section, teaching linear drawing, replacing Henri Ponchon.
In 1859 he moved to intermediate teaching, taking over drawing "after the antique" and expression from Auguste Chauvin. When Chauvin retired in 1880, Soubre taught drawing "after the live model" and painting (advanced level) jointly with Jean-Mathieu Nisen for five years, and then exclusively after Nisen's death in 1885. succeeded him in the intermediate courses.
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. 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, inspired by a tale from One Thousand and One Nights. The work was purchased by the Paris publisher Goupil & Cie and engraved by , broadening Soubre's reputation. At the 1860 Brussels Salon he showed The Madness of Ophelia.
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 and a bronze medal at Sydney. He was made a knight of the Order of Leopold on 7 February 1879.
Several of Soubre's works were acquired by British collectors. 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. Other works travelled further: Convalescent was sold in Kyiv and Proud Humility in Sydney.
Some paintings remained in Belgian collections: the Execution of Pierre de Bex, Former Mayor of Liège belonged to Baron Rodolphe de Lamberts-Cortenbach; 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; and La Måle Saint-Martin was acquired by the Belgian royal family.
Engravings and reproductions
Soubre's reputation was extended by engraved and photographic reproductions of his work. 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), (photographic reproduction of The Banquet of the Beggars), (photogravures for the Franklin Society of Liège album, 1877), Jean-Baptiste-Alfred Cornilliet, and for the house of Goupil & Cie.
Family
Soubre's first wife, Eugénie Cajot, died in December 1861. On 11 August 1863 he married Marie Christine Wurth (1828–1908), his first wife's niece. They had two daughters: Madilène Jeanne (known as Madeleine), born in March 1865, and Marguerite Caroline, born in June 1869, who died at just over a year old.
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. They had three children.
On 26 April 1879, his second daughter Eugénie married the painter (born Daxhelet), a former pupil of Soubre's at the academy. They had two children.
His third daughter, Madeleine (1865–1922), became a painter of flowers. She exhibited with her father at the Ghent Salon of 1883 and at the 1884 Brussels Salon, and participated in several exhibitions at the Royal Circle of Fine Arts of Liège. 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.
Final years (1889–1895)
Soubre resigned his teaching post on 11 February 1889 and was named honorary professor in recognition of his service. He was replaced in drawing "after the live model" by Adrien de Witte and in painting by his son-in-law, Émile Delperée. His former pupils held a celebration in his honour at the academy on 27 June 1889, presenting him with an album of 42 drawings.
Soubre died unexpectedly on 29 January 1895 and was buried in Robermont Cemetery in Liège.
Work
Style
Charles Soubre was primarily a painter of historical subjects, genre scenes, portraits, landscapes, and female nudes. He is associated with the Romantic movement.
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. 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". The art historian André Marchal concurred, noting Soubre's "pursuit of balanced masses, an organisation of planes and decorative synthesis".
The few nudes Soubre produced late in his career were, in Bosmant's words, "most chaste and quite inoffensive". They were unusual in being set in open-air décors with streams and trees surrounding female figures. 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".
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. 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".
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.
Principal works
Death of Henry IV, German Emperor (1850)