Presentation

"Portrait de Jules Bordet" by the Belgian painter Paul Delvaux. © Fondation Paul Delvaux, St. Idesbald - SABAM Belgium 2002

History

Jules Bordet (1870-1961)

Jules Bordet by Paul Delvaux

The portrait of Jules Bordet by Paul Delvaux : A great meeting.

This painting allowed a great painter, Doctor Honoris Causa (1979) in the "Université Libre de Bruxelles" to be in contact for a while with two famous Belgian doctors in medicine : Jules Bordet (Nobel Prize 1919) and Albert Claude (Nobel Prize 1974). The 50th anniversary of the Bordet Institute was the occasion to celebrate this great meeting between Art and Science by exhibiting the painting of the scientist and all preliminary drawings of the work, which have mainly previously been unshown. At the "Fonds Jean-Claude Heuson" request, the "Fondation Paul Delvaux" agreed to entrust the Friends of the Institute with these drawings during the exhibition. This allowed the visitors of the exhibition to appreciate the talent and how the painter conscientiously designed this work.
The master related some of the souvenirs of this meeting, of which Albert Claude was at the origin.
We think that this document can be interesting for the cultural life of the "Université Libre de Bruxelles", and we have reproduced it (see below) with the consent of the "Fondation Paul Delvaux".

Adaptation of the preface of the review published by the Friends of the Bordet Institute during the exhibition "Oeuvres d'art belge contemporain", organised at the Bordet Institute on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, from November the 5th to Novembre the 19th , 1989.

Preparatory study for the"Portrait de Jules Bordet" © Fondation Paul Delvaux, St. Idesbald - SABAM Belgium 2002

French text translated in english (click here for the french version)

"In 1950, Albert Claude, who I did not know and who came back from the United States since he was to be the director of the Bordet Institute , asked me to paint the portrait of Jules Bordet for his Institute. He did not have the consent of the University yet but I answered him that I would draw this portrait whether the university agreed or not because I was pretty much interested in doing it. So the only thing that was important to me was to draw the portrait and if it was to remain in my studio or somewhere else, that had no importance. I knew nothing about Jules Bordet, who was eigthy five, but that he was a great scientist, the first Belgian Nobel Prize of Medicine, and had discovered the whooping cough microbe. I started my work by drawing him life-size in his apartment, which was situated, if I remember well, avenue de l'Université (Brussels). He seemed not to trust me and we did not speak much. Anyway we did not spend time together to talk. However, I still remember forty years later that he told me he had never drunk a glass of beer or wine since the most important thing in research is always to pay attention to things.

"Etude du buste de Jules Bordet" (1950-1952), © Fondation Paul Delvaux, St. Idesbald - SABAM Belgium 2002

I wanted right away to paint him in a night landscape, as he was an apparition, an elderly man that comes back to haunt the laboratory in which he worked when he was young. I wanted the painting to give an impression of mystery that was often absent from the conventional laboratory. However, the laboratory of Jules Bordet gave this impression; it was situated in the premises of the Pasteur Institute, rue du Remorqueur, near the Quartier Léopold, the Wiertz Museum and the Natural History Museum. It was a large 1905 style room, with tall latticework windows, opposite to which we could see buildings of the rue Belliard. This laboratory had been very difficult to draw; it was like a sea or a muddle of test tubes and pipettes where an order probably existed but it was not apparent. We could also find a sink and a old pan. Then, with the help of the scientist's picture and my drawings, I started painting on a beautiful and heavy wood board that Albert Claude had given to me. Once all elements were put in place, Jules Bordet came two times in my studio to pose. Later, he called me and asked about the painting. I explained to him my intentions and he told me he did not agree because he had never worked during the night in his laboratory, I painted burners for gas lamp though there had never been some, he did not want to be painted with the hands in the pockets and finally he refused the "huge" rosette of the Legion of Honour to be "stuck up" on the lapel of his jacket. Obviously, the great scientist did not realize that a painting is a painting. As a result, I told him to come and see the painting once it was completely finished. He did and seemed to have been appealed because after he had analized it during a long period of time, he repeated three times: "but it is not so bad!". However, I had not changed my work's conception, maybe I made the rosette smaller, but I am not sure of it. Following this meeting, I was never in touch with Jules Bordet anymore. But I stroke up friendship with Albert Claude, another scientist who liked my painting. He told me that his experience consisted in the application of two recent discoveries on the cell's study. These discoveries were the electronic microscope and the ultracentrifuge on air cushion, whose principles had been invented by Professor Emile Henriot, with tenure of the chair in the Physics Department at the Faculty of Science of the "Université Libre de Bruxelles". I brought many good times in my studio in Boitsfort (Bruxelles), with Albert Claude and Paul Brien, a narrator with an inexhaustible eloquence and verve, who I met during the First World War at the Natural History Museum, when I was drawing skeletons with such an accuracy as he said. The painting, which was finished after two months and vernished by Tam -my wife-, hung in the house in Ixelles, rue des Champs-Elysées, in which Albert Claude, his mother and his brother were living. It stayed there until the University bought it for 50.000 Fr".
Paul Delvaux (French text translated in English)