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Crossing Borders

Medieval Sculpture from the Low Countries

  • Exhibition
22.09.17
27.05.18
Afbeelding
Meester van de Stenen Vrouwenkop, Utrecht, H. Dorothea, c. 1520-30

Maître de la Tête de Femme en Pierre, Utrecht, Sainte Dorothée, vers 1520-30 | Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, inv. SK 605

In the Low Countries, the art of sculpture reached its highpoint during the Middle Ages. Flemish and Brabantine sculptors excelled at their craft and mastered the art of telling a story with statues. Surprisingly, however, this rich culture is not very well known. M aims to change that with the research-based exhibition 'Crossing Borders. Medieval Sculpture from the Low Countries'.

Aachen masterpieces coming to M

One of the biggest German sculpture collections is coming to Leuven especially for the exhibition. Almost 100 statues from the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen are being exhibited outside Germany for the first time, beside 18 works from the permanent collection at M. The exhibition thus presents an extensive survey of late Gothic (1350-1550) mastery in the Low Countries.

Passport of a statue

This research-based exhibition brings together altarpieces, statues of saints, decorated sculptures, ivories and reliquaries that were probably all produced in the Low Countries. But how does one identify these statues? Who made them? Who commissioned them? Since many sculptures and much source material has been lost, these questions sometimes remain unanswered. They are thus often grouped by town or by region, such as ‘Brabant’ or ‘Southern Low Countries’. Nevertheless, these categories are rarely definitive. This exhibition is therefore pioneering a new approach. According to this method, each statue is given a passport that consists of various characteristics. This allows the statues to tell us more than only the town or region in which they were produced.