<b>1865 - 1888 Mons, Rue de la Halle, 39</b> ° 1.4.1830; + 4.10.1913. Junior artillery officer from 1848 to 1861, then a landowner occupying the château de Moncoureur in Ghlin, near Mons. He became a member of the communal council in 1890 and was for a time acting mayor of the commune. Patent of 1.12.1865 for "a portable photographic darkroom". Author of "La Belgique pittoresque. Les Châteaux", Mons 1872 (- 1878) containing 168 lithographic plates with tinted background after his photographs. Each plate is accompanied by an explanatory leaf of text. This series constitutes the most complete documentation of country residences in Belgium of the period. Emile de Damseaux used the portable darkroom for preparing his exposures in the field. "The author would go forth from Ghlin, with a camera, using all the means of locomotion in order to find all these châteaux, sometimes situated off the beaten track, often journeying by no means other than on foot, getting someone to wheel or wheeling himself a handcart (specially made furthermore, and folding into a bag), on which the photographic laboratory was transported" ("La Belgique pittoresque. Les Châteaux", fasc. 12 (Ghlin, Hainaut), 1878). Founder member of the ABP. Active member of the "Cercle archéologique de Mons". Still employing a Kodak for landscape photography in 1909. An energetic, inventive and gregarious individual, de Damseaux was a free thinker. In an era when cremation was still illegal in Belgium, de Damseaux arranged for his body to be transported over the border to Mainz [D] for incineration and his ashes to be scattered at sea. The MUMONS museum in Mons has an archive of de Damseaux's topographical photographs.