Flemish masterpieces
Drawings from the Merghelynck Museum added to the Flemish Masterpieces List!
The Minister of Culture, Jan Jambon, has decided to permanently include a number of drawings from the Merghelynck Museum collection in the list of movable cultural heritage of the Flemish Community, also known as the “Masterpieces List”. These are works of art from the neoclassical period: the late 18th century to the early 19th century, which is the museum's main area of collection.
22 large landscape drawings
On the one hand, there is a series of 22 large drawings from the 18th century with views of Rome and its surroundings, made by various artists such as Joseph-Benoît Suvée, Jacques Valcke, Joseph-Barthélémy Le Bouteux and Louis Chaix.
These drawings were collected by Jacques Valcke, a native of Ypres. As an artist, he completed his training with a so-called “grand tour”, a long study trip to Italy to study the abundance of works of art there. In Rome, he moved in the circles of the pensionnaires or boarders of the Académie de France. The young artists worked closely together and influenced each other both in terms of content and style. Drawings were given to each other or exchanged.
The collection in Ypres is a striking example of this. It consists of landscape drawings of ruins of ancient buildings that are of great artistic value, executed in black and mainly reddish-brown chalk. The latter had the colour of blood and is therefore also called sanguine. Although the sheets were made by young artists in training, many drawings show great talent. Of particular interest are several works by the French artist Joseph-Barthélémy Le Bouteux, whose works are extremely rare.
The Merghelynck Museum still has the largest and most representative collection of his landscape drawings. Arthur Merghelynck was able to purchase the drawings at the end of the 19th century and add them to the collection.
18th-century masterpiece by Desprez
On the other hand, the magnificent large drawing by Louis-Jean Desprez from 1773 has now also been included in the list of masterpieces. This drawing is unique in Flanders and is of great historical and cultural-historical importance. In 1773, Marie-Antoinette had already been married to the French crown prince, the future King Louis XVI, for more than three years. They had been living at the Palace of Versailles all that time, and it was not until 8 June 1773 that she made her long-awaited ceremonial entry into the city of Paris.
Desprez masterfully depicts the festive moment when the crown princess and her husband greet the people from the balcony of the Tuileries Palace. The drawing also has special artistic value. The imposing garden façade of the palace is rendered with virtuosity and correct perspective.
This palace was set on fire in 1871 and the ruins were demolished in 1883, making this large drawing an important witness to a palace that has disappeared, one that is so closely linked to the history of France. But these works of art, like Ypres and the Merghelynck Museum, have also had an eventful history.
Masterpieces of the Merghelynck Museum today
It was not until 1994, when the city of Ypres took over the management of the Merghelynck Museum from the Académie royale de Belgique, that the series of 22 landscape drawings was rediscovered! In 1996, they were presented to the public for the first time since 1915 during the temporary exhibition “Bloedmooi” (Blood Beautiful) at the Stedelijk Museum.
Desprez's masterpiece remained hidden for even longer. During the First World War, the drawing was on display at an exhibition in the Petit Palais in Paris featuring heritage rescued from the Westhoek region.
It was not until the end of 2007 that the work was rediscovered during a move at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. A note on the back of the drawing states that the work was placed in safekeeping by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove on 17 May 1918. On 8 April 2008, this masterpiece was donated back to the Merghelynck Museum, one hundred years after Arthur Merghelynck's death. And now it is on the list of masterpieces! A fitting tribute.
