Joseph Édouard Stevens (26 November 1816 – 2 August 1892) was a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

animalier An animalier (, ) is an artist, mainly from the 19th century, who specializes in, or is known for, skill in the realistic portrayal of animals. "Animal painter" is the more general term for earlier artists. Although the work may be in any genre ...

painter and engraver.

Life

He was the son of Jean François Léopold Stevens (1791–1837), a

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

art dealer and collector, and the elder brother of the painter Alfred Stevens and of the art critic Arthur Stevens (1825 – 1890). He frequented as a dilettante the

Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels (french: Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts - École supérieure des Arts de la Ville de Bruxelles (ARBA-ESA), nl, Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Brussel), is an art school established in B ...

and followed courses by Louis Robbe and Eugène Verboeckhoven. Partly self-taught, he finished his training in Paris, without enrolling in a school, and frequented the studio of

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (March 3, 1803August 22, 1860) was a French painter noted for his Orientalist works. Life Decamps was born in Paris. In his youth he travelled in the East, and reproduced Oriental life and scenery with a bold fidelity to ...

, as well as painters of the

Barbizon School The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name ...

and of the "Groupe du Restaurant du Havre" including

Thomas Couture Thomas Couture (21 December 1815 – 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge,Wilkinson, Burke. ''The Life and Works of A ...

Eugène Isabey Eugène Louis Gabriel Isabey (22 July 1803, in Paris – 25 April 1886, in Montévrain) was a French painter, lithographer and watercolorist in the Romantic style. Biography He was born to Jean-Baptiste Isabey, a well known painter wh ...

Théodore Rousseau Étienne Pierre Théodore Rousseau (April 15, 1812December 22, 1867) was a French painter of the Barbizon school. Life Youth He was born in Paris, France in a bourgeois family. At first he received a basic level of training, but soon display ...

and others. He exhibited at the Brussels Salon from 1842. In 1852 he joined his two brothers in Paris where he lived for several years, dividing his time between the worldliness of the Imperial Court, in particular the

Jardin des Tuileries The Tuileries Garden (french: Jardin des Tuileries, ) is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in ...

, and the Bohemianism of café life. He executed many drawings of horses in the

Bois de Boulogne The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...

which he exhibited in Amsterdam in 1854, and later in

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlies ...

in 1858. He became acquainted with

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...

, whom he met again in Brussels in 1864. The poet dedicated to him the piece ''Les Bons Chiens'' ("Good Dogs"), the penultimate work, preceding ''Épilogue'', in the collection '' Petits poèmes en prose''. (Dogs were Stevens' preferred subject matterRobert L. Delevoy, ''Les Stevens''
on the website ''

Encyclopædia Universalis The ''Encyclopædia Universalis'' is a French-language general encyclopedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company. The articles of the ''Encyclopædia Universalis'' are aimed at educated adult readers, and writt ...

''). He finally returned to live in Brussels in 1869. His work attracted many patrons, notably Henri Van Cutsem; King Leopold II also bought paintings of his. Despite (or perhaps because of) his success, he fell prey to alcohol in his later years.

Ernest Meissonier Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (; 21 February 181531 January 1891) was a French Classicist painter and sculptor famous for his depictions of Napoleon, his armies and military themes. He documented sieges and manoeuvres and was the teacher of Éd ...

painted his portrait, and a street in the city of Brussels (connecting the district of Marolles to that of Sablon), is named after him.

Works

Stevens produced mostly canvases showing domestic animals (generally dogs, monkeys and horses) in sometimes curious or run-down settings far removed from

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

. This

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

, of which he was one of the pioneers, attracted the interest from the 1850s of predominantly French critics and intellectuals, particularly Baudelaire and also

Léon Cladel Léon Cladel (Montauban, 22 March 1834 – 21 July 1892, Sèvres) was a French novelist. The son of an artisan, he studied law at Toulouse and became a solicitor's clerk in Paris. Cladel made a limited reputation by his first book, ''Les Ma ...

, who was inspired by Stevens' paintings to write ''Léon Cladel et sa kyrielle de chiens'' (1885).

Museum holdings

Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp ( Dutch: ''Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen'', ''KMSKA'') is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, that houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth ...

* Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium *

Belfius Art Collection The Belfius Art Collection is a collection of Belgian art owned by the Belfius Bank (and thus as of August 2018 by the Belgian State, owner of Belfius since 2011). History The current collection of Belfius Bank is the combination of the collecti ...

Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent The Museum of Fine Arts ( nl, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, MSK) an art museum in Ghent, Belgium, is situated at the East side of the Citadelpark (near the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst). The museum's collection consists of some 9000 artworks ...

Musée des beaux-arts de Marseille The Musée des beaux-arts de Marseille is one of the main museums in the city of Marseille, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. It occupies a wing of the Palais Longchamp, and displays a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings fro ...

: ''A la porte'' * Musée d'Orsay: ''Le Supplice de Tantale'' * Mu.ZEE (Kunstmuseum aan zee),

Ostend Ostend ( nl, Oostende, ; french: link=no, Ostende ; german: link=no, Ostende ; vls, Ostende) is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerk ...

Musée des beaux-arts de Rouen The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen is an art museum in Rouen, in Normandy in north-western France. It was established by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1801, and is housed in a building designed by and built between 1877 and 1888. Its collections include ...

: ''Un métier de chien''

Gallery

File:PMa B 557 Tournai.jpg, La vieille Lice (oil on canvas; MBA Tournai) File:Joseph Stevens - At the door.jpg, At the Door (oil; MBA Marseilles) File:Joseph Stevens - Dog of a traveling entertainer.Jpeg, Dog of a Travelling Entertainer (oil on card) File:Joseph Stevens - Dog trainer.jpg, Dog Trainer (oil on panel) File:Joseph Stevens - Dog.jpg, Dog (oil on panel) File:Joseph Stevens - Punishment of Tantalus.png, Punishment of Tantalus (oil on canvas; RMFA Antwerp or Musée d'Orsay) File:Joseph Stevens - Scene of the dog market in Paris.jpg, The Dog Market in Paris (oil on canvas; RMFAB) File:Joseph Stevens - The dog and the fly.jpg, The Dog and the Fly (oil on canvas 1856; RMFAB) File:Stevens-bruxelles.jpg, Brussels in the Morning (oil on canvas 1848; RMFAB) File:Joseph Stevens - Enemies (1854).jpg, Enemies (oil on panel 1848; Hermitage Museum)

Life

Works

Museum holdings

Gallery

Notes and references

Further reading