886
hundred, Maes opened negotiations to acquire the rights,
but was unable to reach agreement. Maes set about
“reinventing” the process, and by November 1869 had
produced prints in the full range of halftones. During
the following year the collotype workshop went into
operation, and in 1871 Maes imported a steam-powered
collotype press from Germany, the fi rst of four.
Always the shrewd businessman, and chastened by
the failure of earlier ventures, Maes retained the portrait
studio, a sure source of income which he operated in
parallel to his printing works throughout the 1870s. He
offered to supply illustrations in collotype, photo-auto-
typie (carbon) and Woodburytype, presumably having
acquired the hydraulic press for the process previously
worked by Simonau and Toovey under licence up to the
mid-1870s. Maes operated from Avenue de l’Industrie
24 from 1874 to 1881, and Rempart Sainte-Catherine
23 from 1875 to 1882, then sold the portrait studio at
this address to his operator Georges Raynaud. From
1884 to 1895 he ran the collotype works from Rue
Gramaye 10. Maes’ work graced a broad range of art-
historical publications, some of which he published
himself. His most extensive achievement in collotype is
the folio Documents classés de l’art dans les Pays-Bas,
du Xième au XVIIIième siècles [Schedule of Art in the
Low Countries, from the Tenth to Eighteenth Centuries],
published between 1880 and 1889 and containing 720
plates with accompanying text by the architect J.J. Van
Ysendyck.
As Maes secured his social standing within Antwerp
society, so his public profi le grew apace. He successively
founded two reviews of the arts, Revue artistique (1878–
1884) and Chronique des Beaux-Arts (1884–1886),
supplying the illustrations from his own printworks.
Joining the Association belge de Photographie (ABP)
in 1882, he was appointed president of the Antwerp sec-
tion on 6 December 1886, a post he retained as late as
1904, and held the presidency of the Association from
1889 to 1895. Chairman of the Union Internationale de
Photographie, he hosted sessions in Amsterdam, Liège
and Brussels between 1895 and 1897. He was awarded
the Order of Leopold for his services.
Maes remained commercially and publicly active
into old age. Although he relinquished control of the
collotype works to George and René Dero from 1892
to 1894, he appears to have regained control at least
for a short time around 1895. From his fi nal address
in Antwerp, Rue Rembrandt 33(3), he was registered
as a person of private means, but became an agent for
the Lumière company’s “Cinématographe.” He edited
a fortnightly broadsheet Journal de Photographie from
October 1902 to September 1905, and frequently exhib-
ited as an amateur at the salons of the ABP.
Joseph Maes retired to the Antwerp suburb of
Berchem on 7 June 1907 accompanied by his wife
and unmarried daughter Augusta. He died on 4 August
1908, and was buried in Berchem cemetery. A dynamic
fi gure in 19th-century Belgian photography, he had par-
ticipated, in his various guises as photographer, printer,
publisher, and increasingly successful entrepreneur, in
many of the technical developments in photography for
over half a century.
There are substantial holdings of Maes’ work at the
Bibliothèque royale Albert Ier—Département des impri-
més, Brussels, Provinciaal Museum voor Fotografi e, An-
twerp, Stadsbibliotheek [municipal library], Antwerp,
and Stadsarchief [municipal archives], Antwerp.
Steven F. JosephBiography
Melchior Florimond Joseph Maes was born in Ghent
on 10 June 1838. Opening his fi rst studio in 1858, he
soon began supplying photographs for book illustra-
tion. Maes married Emma Strybos on 27 October 1863,
and they had two daughters, Augusta born in 1865 and
Julia in 1867. The family moved to Antwerp in 1866.
Always the shrewd businessman, Maes recognised the
potential of photomechanical processes. He set up a
collotype printing works in Antwerp in 1870, which he
ran for nearly twenty-fi ve years. A key fi gure in 19th-
century Belgian photography, Maes participated, in his
various guises as photographer, printer, publisher, and
increasingly successful entrepreneur, in many of the
technical developments in photography for over half a
century. Maes died on 4 August 1908, and was buried
in Berchem cemetery.
See also: Gaudin, Marc-Antoine; Collotype; Albert,
Josef; Woodburytype, Woodburygravure; and
Lumière, Auguste and Louis.Further Reading
Coppens, Jan, Laurent Roosens, and Karel Van Deuren, “Door de
enkele werking van het licht”: introductie en integratie van de
fotografi e in België en Nederland [By the sole action of light”:
Introduction and Integration of Photography in Belgium and
The Netherlands], Antwerp: Gemeentekrediet, 1989.
De Vylder, Gustave, “Visite à l’atelier photographique de M.
Maes, à Anvers” [‘‘Visit to M. Maes’ Photography Studio
in Antwerp’’], Bulletin belge de la photographie, 9 (1870):
154–157.
Joseph, Steven F., Tristan Schwilden, and Marie-Christine Claes,
Directory of Photographers in Belgium 1839–1905, Antwerp
and Rotterdam: Uitgeverij C. de Vries-Brouwers, 1997.
Puttemans, Charles, “M. Jos. Maes Président de L’Association
belge de Photographie 1889–1895” [‘‘M. Jos. Maes President
of the Association belge de Photographie 1889–1895’’],
Bulletin de l’Association belge de Photographie, 22 (1895):
296–299.
Vercheval, Georges (editor), Pour une histoire de la photographie
en Belgique [Contributions to a History of Photography in
Belgium], Charleroi: Musée de la Photographie, 1993.