Like his Dutch father, Jean-Baptiste van Marcke de Lummen (1797-1849), Émile van Marcke was at first employed as a painter-decorator for the Manufacture de Porcelaine in Sèvres, where he met Constant Troyon (1810-1865), another employee who influenced his career as an animal painter and who introduced him to the Barbizon painters. Van Marcke's first animal studies were made at the imperial farms at Villeneuve-l'Étang and in Grignon, where he was a frequent visitor. He then spent time in Brittany, the Landes, and Sologne, finally settling in Bouttencourt in Normandy. He almost exclusively painted animals, but he also produced some landscapes and beach scenes. Although he first began exhibiting at the Salon of 1857, it was only after the death of Troyon in 1865 that van Marcke began to attract attention in his chosen genre. Highly valued by English and American collectors, his work sold readily in these countries, where he began exhibiting in 1878. While lacking the breadth of vision and the variety of style found in Troyon's work, van Marcke's oeuvre is that of an honest artisan who deserved the esteem in which he was held. He received the Legion of Honor in 1872.
