The Print Lover

Just before his retirement, we asked curator Jan Dewilde what his favourite piece from the Ypres Museum collection was. He turned out to be particularly charmed by the smallest painting in the Ypres Museum!

The Print Lover by Théodore Ceriez

"Personally, I think it's one of Ceriez's best works. The painter, who was never shy about making a joke, painted a collector studying a very interesting print in his hands. In his surprise and/or excitement, his pipe falls out of his mouth and shatters on the wooden floor.

The wealthy Ypres resident Gustave de Stuers bought the work as soon as it was finished for 330 francs on 4 August 1869. It remained in private hands and was never again on public display until the museum was able to purchase it at a public auction at the Palace of Fine Arts in 1934. It is still in its original frame.

This purchase shows that even today, the museum has to look far beyond the city limits for objects that left Ypres before the First World War and were thus preserved.