[6] In 1868, he was one of sixteen co-founders of the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts,[7] an avant-garde society that provided exhibition space alternative to that of the official Salon in Belgium.

The manifesto of the society espoused the Realist principle of "free and individual interpretation of nature" along with avant-gardist ideals of "struggle, change, freedom, progress, originality and tolerance" that were inspired by Courbet and Baudelaire.

[11] The critic Camille Lemonnier, a fellow member of the Sociéte Libre, praised him for "sincerity", one of the ideals prized by their group.

[12] Bouré showed work at the Exposition Universelle de Paris in the years 1867 and 1878, and at numerous salons in Belgium and abroad.

[24] Bouré's interest in leonine subject matter places him in company with les animaliers, the 19th-century French sculptors led by Antoine-Louis Barye who made animals the focus of their work rather than relegating them to the background.

[25] Along with the sculptor Léon Mignon (1847–1898) and Jacques de Lalaing (1858–1917), Bouré helped establish a distinctively Belgian tradition of animal art, to which the flourishing Antwerp Zoo contributed inspiration.

The Apollo's overall height of nearly 5 feet, which includes the tree trunk extending past the body, gives the figure a vertical proportion comparable to that of Bouré's 4-foot horizontal boy.

[35] The Louvre acquired its Apollo Sauroctonos as part of the Borghese Collection,[36] which included other pieces that may have influenced Bouré such as a boyish standing Eros,[37] the so-called ephebe Narcissus, and a sleeping Hermaphroditus.

Rodin's approach to representing children as "well-fed babies" has been related to his practice in drawing cupids (erotes) for various two-dimensional media.

[41] On the monumental gate of Berchem in Antwerp, Bouré's statue of the Belgo-gallic leader Ambiorix was paired with that of the Nervian general Boduognatus by Pierre Armand Cattier.

For the interior of the Palais, each artist provided a pair of larger-than-life figures, Cattier the Greek orators Demosthenes and Lycurgus, and Bouré the Roman jurists Cicero and Ulpian.

[47] Bouré created a self-portrait for his own tomb, and at the time of his death was working on a bronze bust of the 16th-century architect Cornelis Floris de Vriendt which was completed by Joseph van Rasbourgh.