Verboeckhoven: Belgian animal painter and hero of the 1830 Revolution

He painted the king’s dogs, disarmed a soldier with his bare hands, and it was he who built the walls where it’s so pleasant to enjoy a drink or a meal. Eugène Verboeckhoven. The name may not ring a bell. And yet.

As a child, he was sent to work in a toy factory. As an adult, he was a painter so famous that his works were copied to excess. A fighter in the Belgian Revolution, a signatory to the petition that placed Leopold I on the throne.

And in 1836, the first owner of the land that would, a century and a half later, become the Ultieme Hallucinatie.

A character straight out of a novel. And yet, it is all true.

Self-portrait of Eugène Verboeckhoven, 1854 — aged 56, at the height of an extraordinary career. It was he who had the first walls of the Ultieme Hallucinatie built, which you can discover at 316 Rue Royale in Brussels.

From the toy factory to the royal salons: Verboeckhoven’s forgotten childhood

Warneton, 9 June 1798. Eugène was born to a sculptor father, ‘the most irascible and the best of men’, who taught him to draw before sending him, at the age of eleven, to work in a moulded cardboard toy factory in Gorcum. Ironically, the boy was promoted there to ‘workshop foreman’. He returned home, enrolled at the Academy of Ghent, progressed rapidly… and found himself unjustly ranked fifth in a competition. Outraged, he stormed out. The jury had just rejected the best pupil he had ever had.

Verboeckhoven, the Belgian animal painter: a 19th-century European success story that forgers loved to copy

Verboeckhoven quickly became one of Europe’s most famous animal painters. Sheep, horses, wolves, painted with almost scientific precision and a romantic sensibility that enchanted the bourgeois salons of the 19th century. His order book was full for several years in advance, and forgers in Antwerp produced nothing but copies of his paintings intended for export. Being copied on a large scale was the ‘ultimate’ mark of success.

Vincent van Gogh, however, was not convinced. In a letter to his brother, he spoke of the ‘life-size cows of the pious Verboeckhoven’ as something terrifying. To each his own, Van Gogh didn’t sell many paintings during his lifetime either.

Official painter to Leopold I… starting with the Queen’s dog

Leopold I was a lover of animal painting. He commissioned Verboeckhoven, but it was not the king who posed first. It was Queen Louise-Marie’s dog. Then a tiger. Then parrots for the palace. One can imagine Europe’s most sought-after painter, sketchbook in hand, facing the royal pooch. What followed was even more glorious: he eventually painted the king’s grand equestrian portrait, was appointed Commander of the Order of Leopold, and decorated with the Legion of Honour, the Order of Christ of Portugal and the Order of St Michael of Bavaria. Not bad for someone whose career began amongst the hooves of a moulded cardboard cow.

Portrait of Queen Louise-Marie – a collaborative work: Wappers painted the queen, whilst Verboeckhoven painted the horse and the dog. This collaboration between the two greatest Belgian painters of the time was commissioned by the Royal Court of Belgium.

Verboeckhoven and the Belgian Revolution of 1830: the painter who laid down his brush to take up arms

In 1830, Verboeckhoven was 32 years old and had an international career, yet he put down his brush and went to war. He raised a company of volunteers, dismounted a Dutch soldier at Diegem and snatched his lance, which he turned into a flagpole for his unit. Wappers’s large painting of the September Days depicts him, spear in hand. He was among the signatories of the petition that placed Leopold I on the throne. He and his brother were awarded the Iron Cross.

Portrait of Queen Louise-Marie – a collaborative work: Wappers painted the queen, while Verboeckhoven painted the horse and the dog. A collaboration between the two greatest Belgian painters of the time, commissioned by the Royal Court of Belgium.

1836: Verboeckhoven had the house built that would become the Ultieme Hallucinatie

In 1836, at the height of his fame, Verboeckhoven had a sober and elegant neoclassical house built in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, on a plot of land purchased from Count Cornet de Grez, whose name still gives its name to the street opposite. Nearly 150 years later, this building would become the Ultieme Hallucinatie.

‘Flock of Sheep Surprised by a Storm’ (1839) — painted during the period when Verboeckhoven lived in the house that would become the Ultieme Hallucinatie, and now on display at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, just a stone’s throw from here.

Verboeckhoven Square in Schaerbeek: why does everyone call it 'the bear pit'?

Schaerbeek dedicated a square to him in 1874. The contractor replaced the retaining walls with faux rocks and circular railings. In 1878, during a heated election meeting, Alderman Bergé, a political opponent of the mayor, compared the whole thing to “the bear cage at Bern Zoo” which he had just visited. The nickname caught on immediately. Even today, almost no one knows the official name, especially as the local council has since mangled the name Verboeckhoven by dropping the ‘c’. Posterity, it seems, is never quite straightforward.

The square is aptly named – or almost. The ‘c’ in Verboeckhoven has mysteriously vanished in the official transliteration.

He died on 19 January 1881 in Schaerbeek, the very town he had helped to liberate. His house continues to welcome visitors, under a different name.

Eugène is the first chapter, but the Verboeckhoven family still harbours secrets within the walls of L’Ultieme, including a book you’re bound to know…

If you love stories, come and discover them in our Art Nouveau brasserie!

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