In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent (MSK) is organizing the biggest Jan van Eyck exhibition ever seen. Worldwide, there are only some twenty works by this Flemish Master preserved, over half of which are traveling to Ghent. There, they are being brought together with work from Van Eyck's studio, copies of paintings that have gone missing over time and more than 100 masterpieces from the late Middle Ages.
The eight restored exterior panels from The Ghent Altarpiece stand at the center of the exhibition. For the first and last time in history, an exhibition outside of St-Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent will confront these revolutionary panels with other works by the master and his most gifted contemporaries.
"Van Eyck. An Optical Revolution" is absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Never before could one admire so many Van Eyck's in a single place and come closer to his mastery. Several pieces are even being restored specifically for the occasion. As such, we are offering the visitors the same astonishment that Van Eyck's contemporaries experienced when they saw his work for the first time. Don't miss your chance to be part of the experience!
Photo credit: The Annunciation Diptych, c. 1433-1435, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid | Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon, c. 1428−1430, Muzeul National Brukenthal, Sibiu (Romania) | The Llangattock Hours, c. 1450, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles | The Saint Barbara of Nicomedia, 1437, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, Antwerp © Art in Flanders vzw. Photo Hugo Maertens | The Annunciation, c. 1434-1436, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection | Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, c. 1430-1432, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917, Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art