Sculpture: The Emperor Charles Chimney Breast at Het Brugse Vrije and the wooden sculptures at the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, with Anne van Oosterwijk and Kristel Van Audenaeren, Assistant Curators at Musea Brugge

Detail of The Emperor Charles Chimney Breast (Photo by Sarah Bauwens)

One of the jewels of sixteenth-century sculpture in Bruges is the chimney-piece of the Brugse Vrije. Seven sculptors worked on this magnificent work of art, after a design by Lancelot Blondeel, who supervised the execution himself. The superb quality, diversity of materials, and iconography of this piece inside the courtroom, make it a high point of Renaissance sculpture. In the second part of the excursion, participants will visit the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady). Besides the well-known tombs and the Madonna by Michelangelo, attention will focus on seventeenth-century sculpture. During the church’s restoration, which is still ongoing, these sculptures too were restored, revealing the high quality of these anonymous works of art.