Opulence Distilled. April 27 - October 1, 2024

Masterpieces from the oeuvre of Jan Davidsz. de Heem (Utrecht, 1606 - Antwerp, 1684)

Do you love pure beauty? Are you enraptured by a painted illusion of nature? Are you fascinated by a breathtaking rendering of details? Then this first retrospective of De Heem is a must-see.

Jan Davidsz. de Heem (Utrecht, 1606 - Antwerp, 1684) was an exceptional artist in his time, working in the Netherlands, a divided region since the Fall of Antwerp in 1585. As a painter he worked across national boundaries to elevate the beauty of still life painting to its zenith, insisting on high quality, continually pursuing renewal and maintaining the vitality of the genre.

Dr. Fred G. Meijer is curator.

BAROQUE INFLUENCERS. JESUITS, RUBENS AND THE ART OF PERSUASION

22 April 08:00 – 16 July 17:00

A special exhibition at three historic locations forms the heart of the festival. It will allow you to experience the baroque in a surprising way. 

To win over their audience, the Jesuits developed a unique visual culture that was influential as far away as China. The central exhibition shows how the leading figures of Antwerp in the long seventeenth century thought, dreamed, worked and prayed.

One such protagonist was Peter Paul Rubens. At the request of the Jesuits, he created thirty-nine ceiling paintings in St Charles Borromeo Church. These were lost in the fire of 1718. During Baroque Influencers, we will bring that lost art treasure back to life at The Snijders&Rockox House. We will do so by using more than forty domestic and foreign masterpieces by Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob de Wit and Daniel Seghers.

Furthermore, the exhibition in St Charles Borromeo Church gathers devotional prints, etchings and books from the collections of various heritage institutions, including the Ruusbroec Society. In the Nottebohm Hall of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library, you can admire a reconstruction of the rich interior of the Sodality and the baroque chapel it once was. 

The exhibition will be held in three locations: Museum Snijders&Rockoxhuis, the galleries of St Charles Borromeo Church, and the Nottebohm Hall of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library*

FINIS TERRAE - 17/11/2022 – 26/02/2023
The end. A beginning.

Five years after the successful exhibition ECCE HOMO (2017-2018), Yasmine Geukens & Marie-Paule De Vil, in collaboration with Lien Craps and Eric Rinckhout, are once again organizing a group exhibition uniting contemporary Belgian artists around one contemporary theme: FINIS TERRAE.

This exhibition runs from 17 November 2022 to 26 February 2023, and takes place at various (historical) locations throughout the city of Antwerp.

FINIS TERRAE aims to take a look at our world today. More than ever, the boundaries of our contemporary society are laid bare. In addition, a crisis situation sets minds in motion. The exhibition therefore also aims to highlight hope, the resilience of mankind, and the power of art.
No distinction is made between young and old, male and female, white and colored, nor between any artistic discipline. The curators deliberately opt for living, Belgian artists (and artists residing in Belgium).

Like ECCHE HOMO, this exhibition is linked to the organization HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, and more specifically to the division of environment and the humanitarian consequences that climate change can bring about.

Artists in the Snijders&Rockox House:

Berlinde De Bruyckere, Thierry De Cordier, Sanam Khatibi, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Cindy Wright, Ben Sledsens , Jan Van Imschoot, Charles Degeyter, Babs Decruyenaere, Lara Gasparotto, Peter De Meyer.

Keyboard Instruments - 26/3 – 26/6/2022

Virginals, harpsichords and organs depicted in the 16th and 17th centuries

The Snyders&Rockox House has joined forces with the Vleeshuis Museum in Antwerp to present the exhibition Keyboard Instruments as an extension to its music room.

Paintings featuring harpsichords, virginals and organs offer us a glimpse of gorgeous interiors, amorous scenes and finely-dressed ladies – and the occasional young man too – at the keyboard. Keyboard instruments can also be the key to decoding an allegory, myth or hidden message in a painting.

Other exhibits include painted harpsichord and virginal lids as well as original instruments.
Loans from the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Suermondt-Ludwigmuseum in Aachen and many other museums and collectors offer a delight for eyes and ears.

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The music room at the Snyders&Rockox House evokes the Jewish-Portuguese Duarte family, who came to Antwerp in the 16th century to flee the Inquisition. They were drawn by the commercial opportunities offered by the city, where they lived in a patrician residence on the Meir, the most important street. Besides an exceptional collection of paintings by leading Italian and above all Flemish masters, from Titian and Tintoretto to Quinten Massys, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck, the family also owned five harpsichords and virginals.

Duarte did not have to look far to find them, as Antwerp was one of the leading centres for the construction of these instruments and two if not more important harpsichord builders belonged to the businessman’s circle of acquaintances.

The first references to harpsichord builders in Antwerp date from the beginning of the 16th century. It was between 1560 and 1660, however, that the city was known as the undisputed world capital of harpsichord production. Every year, Antwerp workshops turned out hundreds of harpsichords and virginals. Contemporaries praised the instruments for the richness of their sound and their reliability. The members of the Ruckers-Couchet family were especially renowned for their exceptionally high-quality instruments. Hans Ruckers, his sons Joannes and Andreas and his grandson Joannes Couchet did for instrument-making what Peter Paul Rubens was doing for painting and Christophe Plantin for printing. The Ruckers-Couchet family was not alone: names like Marten van der Biest, Joos Karest, Cornelis and Simon Hagaerts, Joris Britsen and many others also stood for excellent quality. Antwerp harpsichords and virginals did not only sell very well locally, they were sought-after throughout Europe and even far beyond until well into the eighteenth century. A substantial proportion of Antwerp’s harpsichord output, like that of its paintings and ornamental furniture, was destined for the international market.

The city also developed a strong tradition in the building of domestic and church organs. Dozens of organ builders were active in the 16th century alone, including the Moors and Brebos families. The Ruckers-Couchet family worked with organs too: Joannes Ruckers, for instance, was responsible for a while for maintaining the organ at Antwerp Cathedral.

The rise of the Antwerp keyboard builders was accompanied by a flourishing music printing industry (Antwerp was not the first or the only centre of music publication, but it was certainly one of the most important) and an emerging bourgeois culture in which music too played a part.

The original instruments are a lasting testimony to musical life in Antwerp, as are the paintings that explore them as their subject matter.

MUSEUM VLEESHUIS

• Portrait of a Musical Family (Duarte Family) - Gonzales Coques
• Family portrait - Frans Floris
• Saint Cecilia with angels - Hendrick Goltzius
• Harpsichord - Joris Britsen III
• A Young Woman playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man - Jan Steen
• Ottavino (child virginal) - Andreas Ruckers I
• Still life with harpsichord - Pieter van Roestraeten
• Virginal - Cornelis Hagaerts
• Woman at the virginal - Gabriel Metsu
• Woman Playing the Virginal - Jan Miense Molenaer
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‘P.LACE.S - Looking through Antwerp Lace’.

25/09/2021 - 09/01/2022.

The exhibition ‘P.LACE.S - Looking through Antwerp Lace’ highlights the important role the city played in the production and trade of lace.
MoMu tells this story through an exhibition trail that connects five locations in the city.

With ‘P.LACE.S’, MoMu is starting a unique conversation between historical textile craft and contemporary fashion to look at our history from a different perspective.
This creates a visual play between past and present, presenting objects from international collections that have never been shown in Belgium before.

 In the Snijders&Rockox House, the exhibition shows exceptional lace and contemporary fashion in historic interiors.

Credits : Iris van Herpen S/S 2017 in collaboration with Philip Beesley, Model: Elza Matiz, Photo: Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce