With the 'Baroque Book Design' exhibition at the Plantin-Moretus Museum and an exceptional loan of 'The Massacre of the Innocents' at the Rubens House, Antwerp is under the spell of Peter Paul Rubens and his Baroque cultural legacy this autumn.
Baroque Book Design
From 28 September 2018 until 06 January 2019, The Plantin-Moretus Museum
How did the book evolve during the Baroque period? Why did a publisher such as Balthasar Moretus collaborate with prominent artists? And what vision do contemporary innovators in the book sector contribute? The exhibition in the Plantin-Moretus Museum shows the publisher's love for the profession. How he motivates the artist, printer and designer in the past and present to create an outstanding product.
The Master lives! / Massacre of the Innocents
From 26 September until 3 March 2019, Rubens House
The Rubens House will be packed during the cultural city festival, ‘Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires’ with new loans and hidden secrets. Since the beginning of June, visitors have enjoyed an enriched collection with new masterpieces, while the public have been able to discover Rubens’ secrets thanks to the restoration of the Self Portrait, the garden porch and the garden pavilion.
With the King Baudouin Foundation's long-term loan to the Rubens House of the portrait of the apostle Matthew by the young Anthony van Dyck, the Rubens House collection is enriched once again. The work comes from a series of apostles and was created between 1618 and 1620.
This autumn, The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is lending the monumental Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem to the Rubens House for a while. So, the most expensive Rubens ever, often considered to be one of the young artist's early masterpieces, returns home after 400 years.
Events in the autumn
This autumn as well, Baroque remains hot in Antwerp. In collaboration with more than 50 partners from the cultural scene, the city of Antwerp is proving Baroque is still an enormous source of inspiration for contemporary art.
More information
A complete overview of the programme is available on the website antwerpenbarok2018.be.