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tribute to his manservant Jean Maertens (born 1832)
for acting as operator and for transporting the cumber-
some equipment.
Some of Dubois’ fi nest earlier images feature in a
series documenting the Brussels zoo, opened in 1851.
The animal studies confi rm his primary preoccupation
with capturing movement and comprise a number of
repeated exercises in achieved immediacy. The most
appealing is a portrait of the Indian elephant Miss Betzy
performing a trick with her keeper. Captioned “Encore
un impossible à faire. 12ème glace” [Another impossible
feat. 12th plate], it records Dubois’ tenacity in the teeth
of improbable odds.
Dubois’ unquestionable masterpiece is his photore-
portage of the silver jubilee celebrations held in Brussels
for Leopold I, king of the Belgians. Over a period of
three days in July 1856, Dubois recorded the highspots
of this outpouring of patriotic fervour, including pro-
cessions, an open air thanksgiving ceremony, and the
inauguration of commemorative fountains. Assisted by
fellow member of the Société française de Photographie
Baron Humbert de Molard (Dubois had been a member
since October 1855), Dubois and his team took about
sixty negatives, of which two-thirds gave successful
prints. Dubois’ “Les Fêtes de Juillet” [July Festivities]
were a tour-de-force of planning as well as execution.
Dubois used his infl uence with the authorities to gain
direct access to the royal party, setting up a battery of
cameras along the route of the various manifestations.
The presence of Dubois’ team attracted its fair share of
popular and journalistic attention, with Dubois himself
cutting a Pickwickian fi gure in a broad-brimmed hat
which he would employ as a camera shutter. The pho-
toreportage earned Dubois a medal at the 1856 Brussels
photographic exhibition, but otherwise contemporary
reaction was surprisingly muted. Dubois’ vision was
perhaps simply too radical, thereby failing to chime with
the prevailing aesthetic. That the unposed images were
indeed considered insuffi ciently “artistic” to contem-
porary taste, is something Humbert de Molard himself
admitted in a report on the Brussels exhibition (Bulletin
de la Société française de Photographie, 2, 1856: 280).
Dubois, as an amateur, felt no pressing need publish the
series, which received only limited dissemination in the
form of a handful of presentation albums.
Dubois’ next major photoreportage was a review
of the Imperial Guard in the newly redesigned Bois
de Boulogne in June 1857. It shared characteristics
with the Jubilee series, both royal occasions offering
set-piece opportunities to capture organised masses
in the open air. Dubois sub-titled the series of thirty
prints “Etudes de photographie rapide dans toutes les
conditions de lumière” [Studies of rapid photography
in all light conditions]. Dubois’ fi nal major series was
a departure from his usual subject matter. “Les Trésors
de l’art ancien dans les Flandres” [Treasures of ancient
art in Flanders] covers territory more readily associated
with Edmond Fierlants. In fact, the two of them photo-
graphed the Memlings at St John’s Hospice in Bruges
simultaneously. Dubois’ genial nature was expressed in
his offer to donate some of his profi ts to the hospice, and
in his self-portrait with the hospice nuns. This series of
art reproductions, totalling 70 plates, was published in
early 1859. Sold as individual prints, it is the only series
which Dubois is known to have commercialised.
Although Dubois continued to photograph into the
1860s, using smaller format and stereo cameras, in-
cluding a notable series of Antwerp street scenes, like
many of his contemporaries in the Société française de
Photographie, his enthusiasm seems to have waned as
these leisured pioneers gave way to a new generation
of workaday professionals and entrepreneurs. Cheva-
lier Dubois de Nehaut died on 21 September 1872 in
Brussels.
The Bibliothèque royale Albert Ier—Cabinet des
estampes, Brussels, holds copyright copies of “Les
Fêtes de Juillet” and “Les Trésors de l’art ancien dans
les Flandres,” and the Bibliothèque nationale de France
—Département des estampes et de la photographie a
copy of “Revue de la Garde du Bois de Boulogne.”
The Gilman Paper Company Collection owns the series
Promenade aux environs de la place de Cologne à Brux-
elles, including the reportage on the Brussels zoo.
Steven F. JosephBiographyLouis 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, near Douai. Dubois was a magistrate by pro-
fession, judge at the tribunal of fi rst instance in Lille.
On 2 December 1851, Dubois moved to Brussels, his
wife Louise Victoire Costeau de Semarcourt remain-
ing in Paris. Dubois rented an apartment at 7 Place de
Cologne (renamed Place des Nations, the present-day
Place Rogier), intending to stay a fortnight. He would
live there for nearly twenty years, moving next door
to number 9 on 11 March 1871. Dubois was a pioneer
of photographic reportage, and undoubtedly the most
talented and inventive practitioner active in Belgium
in the 1850s. His masterpiece is a series of about forty
images recording the silver jubilee celebrations held
in Brussels for King Leopold I in July 1856. Chevalier
Dubois de Nehaut died on 21 September 1872 in Brus-
sels, survived by his separated wife.See also: Société Française de Photographie;
Humbert de Molard, Baron Louis-Adolphe; and
Fierlants, Edmond.