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DUBOIS DE NEHAUT, CHEVALIER
LOUIS-PIERRE-THEOPHILE (1799–1872)
Franco-Belgian proto-reportage photographer
Louis Pierre Théophile Dubois de Nehaut was born
in Douai, in northern France, on 10 August 1799. His
family seat and main residence was the château at Auby,
six kilometres from Douai. Dubois was a magistrate by
profession, judge at the tribunal of fi rst instance in Lille
until revolution broke out in France in 1848. For brav-
ery in upholding law and order in the face of personal
danger, when his actions contributed to preventing the
uprising spilling over the border into Belgium, Dubois
was appointed a knight of the Order of Leopold.
On 2 December 1851, the very day that the future
emperor Napoleon III carried out his coup d’état, Du-
bois registered his residence in Brussels. It is probable
that Dubois preferred to pursue his business interests in
Belgium rather than attempt to exercise his profession
in a France grown politically uncongenial. In any event,
Dubois arrived alone: his wife Louise Victoire Costeau
de Semarcourt, remained in Paris. Dubois rented an
apartment at 7 Place de Cologne, intending to stay a fort-
night. He would live there for nearly twenty years, only
moving next door to number 9 on 11 March 1871.
He was a committed collodion photographer by May
1854, when he made full-plate views in Constantinople.
On another journey to Spain, many of his plates broke in
transit, although a series of portraits of Basques dressed
in native costume did survive the trip. On a return visit
to France, he made studies of a country house and its
grounds, presumably his family seat at Auby. While
comfortable with traditional portraiture and landscape
work, Dubois’ preferred subject matter lay elsewhere: it
was as a pioneer of photographic reportage that Dubois
would gain his reputation, posthumously consolidated,
as the most talented and inventive practitioner active in
Belgium in the 1850s.
By 1854, Dubois felt confi dent enough of the results
he was achieving to put together a personal album
Promenade aux environs de la place de Cologne à
Bruxelles [Stroll around and about the Place de Cologne
in Brussels], the prints in which are accompanied by
captions which show Dubois as an amusing but consci-
entious commentator on his own work. Two views of
“La place pendant les fêtes de septembre” [The square
during the September festivities] are early attempts to
capture a public event ‘on the wing,’ as Dubois pushes
the generally sluggish collodion process to its techni-
cal limits; he manages to keep the blurring of people
and traffi c to a minimum by the use of a high vantage
point, a technique he would exploit in his later work.
Taking the camera futher afi eld, an image of Mechelen
railway station, capturing motion under extreme lighting
conditions, is captioned “Epreuve instantanée au pas-
sage d’un train au soleil couchant. Ciel d’orage 1854”
[Snapshot of a passing train at sunset. Stormy sky 1854].
Another print of Dubois with the stationmaster paysDUBOIS DE NEHAUT, CHEVALIER LOUIS-PIERRE-THEOPHILE
de Nehaut, Louis-Pierre-Théophile
Dubois. Another Impossible Task.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gilman Collection, Gift of The
Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
(2005.100.372.32) Image © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.