Le Chanoine de Decker

A carte-de-visite portrait of le Chanoine [English: Canon] Benoît de Decker (1803-1874), a Belgian prelate who was the Supérieur-Général des Frères et des Soeurs de la Charité and the Supérieur des Frères de Saint Jean de Dieu and also of the Soeurs de l'Enfance de Jésus [English: the Brothers and Sisters of Charity ... the Brothers of St John of God ... the Sisters of the Childhood of Jesus].

From an album compiled by the Belgian jurist, journalist and prison reformer Edouard Ducpétiaux (1804-1868), who in 1863 convened and presided over the first Catholic Congress, a general assembly of some 3000 Belgian Catholics which met at Malines [Flemish: Mechelen] in northern Belgium between 18 August and 22 August 1863.

Photographed by Charles d'Hoy of Gand [English: Ghent] in northwest Belgium.