• Ga naar hoofdinhoud
  • Ga naar zoek
en
  • nl
  • fr
  • de
  • en
  • es
  • Hof van Busleyden
  • Visit Mechelen
  • close
  • Visit the museum
      • Opening Hours
      • Getting there
      • Admission prices and tickets
      • Silent Visit
      • Group Visits
      • De Garage
    • Populair
      • Visit the museum
      • De Garage
      • Getting there
      • Opening Hours
      • Silent Visit
  • Exhibitions
      • Previous Exhibitions
        • DE GARAGE | HILDE OVERBERGH
        • Ricardo Brey - Gap in the Clouds
        • DE GARAGE | WILLIAM LUDWIG LUTGENS
        • A lavish past
        • DE GARAGE | MICHIEL CEULERS
        • Paul Casaer: All we can get
        • Hans Demeulenaere | Doppelganger
        • Rein Dufait | One Enormous Second
        • Renaissance Children
        • Back to Black
        • Maen Florin | Playing at being human
        • Stefan Serneels | A way in a space with neither here nor there
        • Xavier Noiret-Thomé | No More No Less
        • Sergio De Beukelaer | -...
        • It almost seemed a lily
        • Cindy Wright | Eye to eye
        • The Neverending Park
      • Current Exhibitions
        • Hidden Gems
      • Upcoming Exhibitions
        • CON10UR
    • Populair
      • Hidden Gems
      • Cindy Wright | Eye to eye
      • Back to Black
      • Hans Demeulenaere | Doppelganger
      • DE GARAGE | MICHIEL CEULERS
  • About the museum
  • Collection
      • Museum treasures
        • Saint Lucy
        • Enclosed Garden with Calvary and hunt of the Unicorn
        • Enclosed Garden with the Calvary, Virgin Mary and Sint John the Evangelist
        • Dance of the Virtues
        • The Judgement of Solomon
        • Mechelen's beguines at work
        • The Moneychanger and his Wife
        • The Explosion of Zandpoort
        • A Triptych depicting Charles V as King of Spain
        • Charles The Bold's camp during the Siege of Neuss in 1475
        • Suleiman The Magnificent
        • Christ Child Blessing
        • Saint Roch of Montpellier
        • Calvary
        • Mechelen Choirbook
        • Fortuna
        • Blazon of "The Violieren"
        • Ceremonial opening of the Parliament of Mechelen
        • Portrait of John The Fearless, Duke of Burgundy
        • Portrait of Philibert II, Duke of Savoy
        • Scenes of the conquest of Tunis
        • The Spanish Fury
        • Portrait of Rombaut Heyns
        • Plus nulz regretz
        • Puppetry at the court of Margaret of Austria
    • Populair
      • Christ Child Blessing
      • Mechelen's beguines at work
      • Scenes of the conquest of Tunis
      • A Triptych depicting Charles V as King of Spain
      • The Moneychanger and his Wife
  • Contact
  • Press

Museum Hof van Busleyden | Museum in Mechelen

Mechelen’s beguines at work

  • Home
  • Collection
  • Museum treasures
  • Mechelen’s beguines at work

Volg ons op

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • youtube
  • instagram

As of March 2022, the Museum Hof van Busleyden will be undergoing restoration. The permanent exhibition will therefore not be accessible for some time. More information .

Mechelen’s beguines at work

anonymous

17th century

 

In this painting, a bird’s eye perspective of the old beguinage in Mechelen is surrounded by 46 scenes. The old beguinage was situated outside the city walls. In 1578, it was razed and moved to the city centre. Each of the surrounding scenes represents one of the daily activities of Mechelen’s beguines. Two lines of explanation are inscribed under each scene. The first sentence explains which activity the two beguines are carrying out, whereas the second sentence refers to the spiritual reward for this duty. ‘Suster sijdy besich met roosenhoeden te maeken / aerbeyt om totten maechden croon te geraken’ (Sister, are you making rosaries (a crown for the Virgin) / an activity to be crowned as a virgin (to become Jesus’ bride).

 

The painting was probably created during the 17th century. The painter probably relied on the map of Mechelen that Jan van Hanswijck produced in 1594 for this bird’s eye perspective.

This painting used to hang in the stairwell of the Hospital of Our Lady in Keizerstraat in Mechelen. A second, slightly different version graced the walls of the house of the director of the Oude Liedengesticht (hospice for the elderly). It was unfortunately lost (before 1943). Jan Schoeffer, a canon in Mechelen, also created an album with watercolours of this painting, which is preserved in Mechelen’s City Archives. For now, we can only guess how this painting found its way into the collection of the Hospital of Our Lady.

 

__

 

INFORMATION

Title: Mechelen’s beguines at work

Object type: painting

Maker: anonymous

Date: 17th century

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 134.0 x 175.5 cm

Inventory number: OCMW S0059

Origin: In 1993, the public social welfare centre (OCMW) requested that the City of Mechelen manage this asset.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hannah Iterbeke, ‘Cultivating Devotion: The Sixteenth-Century Enclosed Gardens of the Low Countries’, IKON: Journal of Iconographic Studies 10 (2017): 237-250.

L.J.M. Philippen, ‘Begijnen-werkzaamheden naar een schilderij in ’t Mechelsch begijnhof’. In: Willy Godenne (ed.), Prosper Verheyden gehuldigd ter gelegenheid van zijn zeventigsten verjaardag 23 October 1943. Mechelen, 1943: 51-70.

Paul Vandenbroeck, Hooglied: De Beeldwereld van Religieuze Vrouwen in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden vanaf de 13de eeuw. Brussels/Ghent, 1994: 254-255.

Xander van Eck, ‘Between Restraint and Excess: The Decoration of the Church of the Great Beguinage at Mechelen in the Seventeenth Century’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 28 (2000): 129-162.

Hof Van Busleyden logo

Museum Hof van Busleyden

Frederik de Merodestraat 65
2800 Mechelen
Opening hours

Extra

  • Sitemap
  • Cookie preferences
Tobania