Organizers
Stedelijke Musea Mechelen
Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen
The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Organizing committee
Dr Raphaël de Smedt (Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen)
Wim Hüsken (Stedelijke Musea Mechelen)
Dr Alain Jacobs (The Low Countries Sculpture Society)
Léon Lock (The Low Countries Sculpture Society)
Bart Stroobants (Stedelijke Musea Mechelen)
Information from the organizers
An international conference on the occasion of the exhibition
Welgevormd: de Mechelse beeldhouwschool in de negentiende eeuw en haar Europese uitstraling, Mechelen, 18 February-23 April 2006.
Mechelen was a thriving centre for sculpture in the early 19th century,
balancing itself between ancien régime traditions and innovations
brought from abroad, especially from Italy and Paris. It played with many
new themes and expressions in the neo-classical or romantic veins, while at the same time mending or recreating church furniture that had been destroyed
during the French Revolution. This activity ensured the continuation of the tradition of Baroque sculpture.
The conference takes as its starting point the sculptural production at Mechelen in the first half of the 19th
century, represented in the exhibitions in the Stedelijke Musea. It will explore the interactions
between different schools at a time of nation formation and
the search for national identities. Developments in Mechelen were part of the creation of the Belgian kingdom in 1830/31.