Information from the museum website, 9 February 2011
Around the year 1540, the Utrecht painter Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) created three large altarpieces for the abbey of Marchiennes in Artois. They are considered to be among his best and most important pieces commissioned in France. The impressive and audacious paintings attest of the influence of the Italian Renaissance on Van Scorel. Long considered to be lost, the ten most important panels have been rediscovered and reassembled from 1957 onwards. They have now been restored after an ambitious conservation programme by the C2RMF in Versailles, thanks to the Fondation BNP Paribas patronage. It is at this occasion that they will be shown for the first time in Paris, at the Institut Néerlandais, before their permanent installation at the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai. The exhibition, prepared in collaboration with the Musée de la Chartreuse and the Collection Frits Lugt, allows not only to appreciate the powerful, vivid and original colours of the polyptych, but will also shed some light on the creation of the works by showing several preparatory drawings and documents.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a scientific publication on the polyptych and its restoration (in French).