what a collector's item

At an auction in Brussels, the curator gets his hands on a rare watercolour by Charles Degroux (1825-1870). It's a colour design for a mural in the Cloth Hall. A special addition to the city of Ypres and the Ypres Museum.

The Yper Museum purchased several works especially for the exhibition POES. How cats catch humans. One of these is this mezzotint entitled “The Cat Concert” by Wallerant Vaillant from the second half of the 17th century.

In 1494, German author Sebastian Brant published Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools). In the book, fools, also known as idiots or imbeciles, travel to Narragonia, a paradise for fools. One by one, they end up in foolish, ridiculous situations, demonstrating how not to behave.

Ce n'est ni la première ni la dernière fois - Ypres 1281,
Anna Reutinger, 2024, aquarelle sur papier coton

One of the absolute masterpieces in the Ypres Museum collection is the memorial scene by Yolente Belle. The Belle family home occupies an important place in this panel with its fascinating history.

We are ending 2018 with a magnificent acquisition! It is the painting “Een gelofte onder de druïdeneik” (A vow under the druid oak). It goes without saying that we will give this beautiful work a place in the Ypres Museum next year. Louis Delbeke was a well-known nineteenth-century artist who created the pre-war (and at the time famous) murals in the Cloth Hall.

In the early 17th century, engraver Guillaume du Tielt created a beautiful map of the city of Ypres during the siege. The map of the siege of Ypres can be seen in the Yper Museum.

The Venetian Lantern is one of Louise's many portraits of children. The canvas depicts a young girl in a beautiful dress. The room is dark. The dress and her face are illuminated by the burning candle in the Venetian lantern she is holding. A Venetian lantern is a lampion made of coloured paper with a light source inside. The light shines through the paper, creating a special effect.

A print collector in 18th-century costume, painted in 1869 by Théodore Ceriez, sits in profile to the right at a table, studying a very ‘interesting’ print of a voluptuous naked lady in his hands, his pipe falling from his mouth in pieces onto the wooden floor in amazement.

Visual artist Eugeen Vansteenkiste (Wevelgem, 1896 – Ypres, 1963) died sixty years ago in Ypres, the city where he lived and worked. The Ypres Museum has a bunch of works by this eclectic artist. He painted allegorical scenes. His style is often called “romantic-visionary”. We recognise a lot of it, but there's always something weird. His paintings never stand alone, but are incorporated into custom-made frames. These are an integral part of the work.

Klootdolk (Dutch), ballock dagger (English), dague à couillettes (French) or testikeldolk (German). The names in various European languages leave little to the imagination. When you look at the piece, you immediately see why. The handle, with its two round bulbs, is reminiscent of male genitalia. Sometimes you also see it referred to as a kidney dagger. Here too, the origin of the name lies in its shape: the two spherical protrusions resemble two kidneys. However, this more prudish name only came into use in the 19th century. In the 14th and 15th centuries, people still referred to it cheerfully as the “klotendolk”.

September is traditionally an expensive month for many people. Holidays have been paid for, school is starting again, wardrobes need updating – in short, it's high time to start replenishing your savings account. Nowadays, this is mainly done digitally, but in the Middle Ages, people used earthenware money boxes.