Summer Selection: From Sketch to Dream. Composing the Ideal Landscape
Throughout the summer, the City of Namur and the Namur Archaeological Society are exhibiting an exceptional sketchbook from the King Baudouin Foundation and showcasing a selection of landscape works from the permanent collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts.
On display to the public for the first time is a remarkable sketchbook by a Namur painter from the De Bouge dynasty, recently acquired by the Pierre-François Tilmon Fund – managed by the King Baudouin Foundation – on behalf of the Namur Archaeological Society.
Alongside it, and equally never before seen, will be another sketchbook held in the collections of the Namur Archaeological Society: that of Jean-Baptiste Juppin (1678–1729), a leading figure in landscape painting in the Principality of Liège.
The occasion also marks the return to the museum of three of Juppin’s four landscapes from the same society’s collections, which have just been restored by students at the École nationale supérieure des Arts visuels de La Cambre. Their rediscovery highlights the full richness of one of the greatest landscape painters to have hailed from Namur. Now restored to their former splendour, these works also illustrate the mastery of an artist who skilfully blended the traditions of the North with the idealised landscapes inherited from Italy. These collections offer a rare insight into the artists’ studios and reveal the stages involved in creating an idealised natural world, from the sketch to the finished work.
It is worth noting that a series of portraits and self-portraits of Namur artists – or their relatives – from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as other landscapes from the permanent collections, will be specially highlighted in the museum’s galleries.
Through these unprecedented (re)discoveries, the public is invited to step into the painters’ studios and follow, step by step, the path leading from sketch to dream.
This summer selection will be on display from 7 July to 30 August, starting from the main foyer of the Museum of Decorative Arts.
Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm
LES BATELIERS Musée archéologique de Namur, Rue Joseph Saintraint, Namur, Belgique
