page_title: Albert Dubosq
section_title: A rising star of fin-de-siècle Brussels
hierarchical_section_title: Albert Dubosq / Career / A rising star of fin-de-siècle Brussels
caption_attribution_description: English: Snapshot of the revue "Bruxelles sans gêne" (Théâtre de l'Alcazar, Brussels, 1894)
context_page_description: Albert Émile Clément Dubosq is one of the most prolific Belgian scenographers of the Belle Époque. Between 1890 and 1925 Dubosq decorated 446 theatrical entertainments of virtually every possible kind: ballet, circus, drama, opera, operetta, pantomime, revue, and vaudeville. Dubosq is furthermore one of the few scenic painters of his generation to have left a substantial sample of his art, namely twenty-one complete sets. Comprising Europe's largest holding of historical decors, the hundreds of flats and drops of the ‘Dubosq’ collection have survived at the Schouwburg of Kortrijk since 1920.
context_section_description: Dubosq first enlarged his experience at the Théâtre de la Monnaie under the supervision of Pierre Devis and Armand Lynen, who had offered him a job. On 3 January 1890, he debuted as a self-employed stage designer at the Théâtre de l’Alcazar, furnishing scenery for Luc Malpertuis and George Garnir's Ex-Clarmonde, a vaudevillian spoof of Massenet's opera Esclarmonde (1889). 5 February 1890 saw the premiere of Bruxelles à cheval, an ‘equestrian revue’ (revue équestre) by Malpertuis staged at the Cirque Royal. Bruxelles à cheval was to be the first of Dubosq's many contributions to the revue, a satirical genre involving spoken dialogues, sung couplets, ballets, and parades. Most frequently performed around the end of the year, the revue enjoyed such a vogue in fin-de-siècle Brussels that many productions ran for more than a hundred performances: Bruxelles fin de siècle (Alcazar, 1891), for instance, was performed 145 times, while Bruxelles Haut-Congo (Alcazar, 1890) toured Belgium. Dubosq gave his imagination free rein in a string of works coupling the locus of the Belgian capital—often invoked in the title—with recent events in politics, culture and technology: Bruxelles électrique (referring to the electrification of the Alcazar, 1892), Bruxelles port de mer (alluding to the capital's increasing harbor activity, 1893), Bruxelles sans gêne (a parody of Victorien Sardou’s hit Madame Sans-Gêne, Alcazar, 1894), and so on. With a fresh palette and a photographic sense of realism, Dubosq’s revue sets conjured up the new hotspots of Brussels, next to featuring comic fantasies and even Jules Vernian science-fiction.
  
  Dubosq began to be called upon for other types of spectacle as well. At the Alhambra and Théâtre Royal du Parc in Brussels, the artist provided spoken plays of melodramatic allure with historicist and exotic sets that received praise from the press and audience alike. His scenery fir Judith Gautier's japonaiserie La marchande de sourires (Théâtre Molière, 25 November 1897) was thus extolled:
  Le deuxième acte nous transporte dans un paysage fantastique, dont Dubosq a fait une merveille d’impression poignante : les rives du Sonnuda-Gara, la nuit. La berge descend rapidement vers la rivière que longe une palissade à demi brisée. Sur l’autre rive, on aperçoit des cahutes de pêcheurs, dans les bambous, et les toitures des tours sacrées. Une grosse lanterne rouge éclaire, seule, ce coin désolé … Au troisième acte, un décor superbe, un décor de rêve, de Dubosq encore, et qui fera sensation sans aucun doute ; deux jardins contigus séparés par un mur qui disparaît sous l’admirable végétation du pays; une rivière serpente parmi les lotus, les buissons aux mille fleurs du printemps.
   At the Théâtre des Galeries Saint-Hubert, operettas old and new received a luxurious treatment from Dubosq that often rivaled earlier and contemporary Parisian stagings. Complete interiors, among which the auditoriums of the Pôle Nord (1893), Palais d’Éte (1894 and 1897), Alcazar (1897) and Tréteaux (1897), were decorated by Dubosq. More substantial chores began to fill his order book in the guise of stock sets for the new Stadsschouwburg of Amsterdam (1894), the Casino of Nieuwpoort (1896) and Nieuw Circus of Ghent (1897), next to materials for circus companies traveling to Budapest, London, and Vienna. In 1898, Dubosq created the five sets for the itinerant production of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, which visited sixteen different countries after its premiere at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo (29 March 1898).
  Actively supported by the Belgian press, Dubosq grew into a public figure by the late 1890s. Newspapers published interviews and caricatures, or followed his presence among the high society. ‘Official’ institutions such as the Belgian State invited him to fulfill prestigious commissions and to represent Belgium at the Brussels International Exposition (1897) and the Exposition Universelle (1900).
caption: A scene from Malpertuis and Hannon’s revue Bruxelles sans gêne (Théâtre de l'Alcazar, Brussels, 1894), showing the “Ballet des pierres précieuses.” The stage set by Albert Dubosq represents “La place de Brouckère, vue du Café Métropole.” Photograph by Georges Dupont-Émera held at the Royal Library ‘Albert I’, Brussels.
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