Musea Brugge has been awarded several project grants to launch a research project on the work of Hans Memling. Last month, the institution announced it received € 800,000 from the Flemish government in addition to €400,000 of own funds, bringing the research budget to a total of 1.2 million euros.

Nine works in the collection of Musea Brugge are by Memling, making it the second largest Memling collection in the world. Moreover, six works from the collection can be linked directly to the museum Sint-Janshospitaal or other Bruges institutions. This makes the sub-collection an important reference collection for all research on works by Hans Memling around the world.

The timing for the project is ideal because the Sint-Janshospitaal will be closed until the end of autumn for a thorough refurbishment. The new format will connect the historic site, Memling’s masterpieces and the other renowned old collections with contemporary, new stories. The temporary closure of the hospital presents an excellent opportunity to examine Memling’s masterpieces in depth on site without removing them from their permanent storage environment.

Results of the project are planned to be published in the renowned series ‘Corpus of Flemish Primitives’ (‘Corpus des Primitifs flamands’) within five years. An online platform is also being developed to provide in-depth knowledge of the works of and research on this Flemish primitive.