Émile Baes

[4] He further published in 1948 a limited edition book with his own illustrations under the title Les Dieux sadiques (The Sadistic Gods).

[8] He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels where the Neoclassicist painter Joseph Stallaert was one of his teachers.

He later studied in Paris with Alexandre Cabanel, an exponent of the French Academic tradition and Léon Bonnat, a naturalist portrait painter.

[12] Baes exhibited his works in the main capitals of Europe, notably in Paris, where the portrait of King Albert I of Belgium, of whom he was the personal painter, can be seen at the Musée des Invalides.

He was a member of the Société des gens de lettres in Paris and became a Grand Officier of the Légion d'Honneur of France.

[12] At the end of 1935 he was a member of a large delegation which sailed to Martinique to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the incorporation of the French West Indies by France.

Émile Baes was a prolific artist who painted in oil, created pastel drawings, made etchings and designed illustrations for various publications.

[4] In this illustrated work, Baes discusses the different ways in which Christ's facial expressions have been represented in the history of art.

In 1944 he illustrated Louis-Charles Royer's erotic novel Vaudou, roman de mœurs martiniquaises set in the French colony of Martinique.