The Favourite Animals of Leopold I (1845)
by
Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven
When it came to 19th Century visual arts, the Belgian artist Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven (1798 - 1881) pretty much did it all: he was a painter, sculptor, engraver, and lithographer. He was best known in his lifetime for his animal and nature images, although he was also a portraitist, and met with a great deal of critical and commercial success.
The animals depicted here belonged to Leopold I (1790 - 1865), the first king of Belgium after it gained independence in 1831; he ruled until his death in 1865.
