Paul Dumortier, portrait bust of Charles de Rasse, mayor of Tournai, 1818

PAUL DUMORTIER (1763–1838)
Portrait of Charles de Rasse (1774–1818), chevalier de Rasse et de l'Empire
Plaster bust signed and dated P. Dumortier 1818 beneath the right shoulder.
Tournai, 1818

Le chevalier de Rasse is wearing the official mayoral costume prescribed for mayors of towns with more than 5,000 inhabitants. The garment is identifiable by the triple intertwined silver-embroidered braid on the collar, in accordance with the provisions of the Consular Decree of 8 Messidor, Year VIII. He wears in his buttonhole the insignia of the Legion of Honour and of the Dutch Order of the Lion.

Charles-Henri-Joseph de Rasse belonged to an ancient patrician family of the Southern Netherlands. The son of Jacques-Henri de Rasse (1721–1786), alderman of Tournai, and nephew of Canon Jean-Baptiste de Rasse (1724–1783), diplomat in the service of Archduke Leopold of Habsburg-Lorraine, he studied at Saint Paul’s College in Tournai and subsequently at the Oratorian College of Juilly.
A member of the Tournai city council and of the board of the civil hospices from 1799 onward, he was appointed deputy burgomaster in 1801 and became Mayor of Tournai in 1804. He retained this office until his death in 1818. During this lengthy tenure, he worked to modernize the city by transforming several historic districts, reorganizing its hospitals, and implementing measures beneficial to the working classes.
Summoned to Paris in 1809 as a member of the deputation of the electoral college of the Department of Jemappes, he returned decorated with the Legion of Honour and received the title of Knight of the Empire. Following the fall of the Empire, he was confirmed in his position as burgomaster and, in 1816, became a member of the Provincial States of Hainaut. He was awarded the Dutch Order of the Lion in 1817 and died the following year.

The municipality of Tournai commissioned the sculptor Paul Dumortier to create a bust perpetuating his memory; the marble version was intended to adorn the council chamber of the town hall. Charles de Rasse was the father of the diplomats and politicians Jules and Alphonse de Rasse.

The Belgian sculptor Paul Dumortier, a pupil of Jean-Guillaume Moitte, taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tournai during the first decades of the nineteenth century. At the same time, he was active as an art dealer. In 1818, the municipality of Tournai entrusted him with the execution of the bust of Charles de Rasse. Among his works are the statue of Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours (1823), created for Saint Brice Church in Tournai and cast in silver by the silversmith Jacques Liagre, as well as a statue of Abundance executed in 1833 for one of the city’s thoroughfares. He also contributed to the decorative programme of the imperial Piat-Lefebvre carpet manufactory. He was the father of the sculptor Félix Dumortier (1801–1868) and the painter Prosper Dumortier (1805–1879).