Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library
Baroque Influencers | walk
From 22nd April until 16th July 2023
Baroque Influencers | walk: a guide takes you along the 3 Baroque Influencers exhibitions: Snijders&Rockoxhuis, St. Charles Borromeo’s Church and Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.
The exhibition Baroque Influencers. Jesuits, Rubens and the Art of Persuasion shows how the protagonists of 17th-century Antwerp thought, dreamed, worked and prayed. The exhibition collects devotional prints, etchings, paintings, design drawings and books. It continues at three different heritage institutions, namely St. Charles Borremeus Church, Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library and the Snijders&Rockoxhuis Museum. A guide will take you through the highlights of the 3 partial exhibitions.
Dutch
From 21/04/2023 10:00 pm (UTC) until 16/07/2023 9:59 pm (UTC)
Choose your tickets, date and time
Select the number of participants per guided tour or the number of individual tickets needed.
Museum Snijders&Rockoxhuis : At the request of the Jesuits, Peter Paul Rubens realized 39 ceiling paintings in St. Charles Borromeo’s Church, which were lost in the fire of 1718. During Baroque Influencers, we try to bring that lost art treasure back to life in the Museum Snijders&Rockoxhuis. We do so through over forty domestic and foreign masterpieces by Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob de Wit and Daniel Seghers. It is the ideal place to experience Baroque art in situ.
The part of the exhibition that takes place in St. Charles Borromeo’s Church brings the interpersonal story of the Jesuits and delves deeper into how they were embedded in the society of 17th century Antwerp. Jesuits actively sought to connect with the urban population, set up education for schoolchildren from diverse backgrounds, and actively thought about how they should how they should relate to dissenters, such as Calvinists and people from the overseas territories. The Catholic faith was central to the Jesuits.
The Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library is the third and final location of the central exhibition. This building provided the setting for the Sodality. Sodality in this context refers to the building itself, but also to the spiritual brotherhoods that were housed there, to which Peter Paul Rubens belonged. Indeed, when the building was completed in 1621, it housed two chapels for the fraternities associated with the Jesuit community. Every week, hundreds of men from Antwerp’s elites gathered here.
Practical information:
- This walk is suitable for groups of adults
- Maximum 15 persons per group
- Duration: 150 minutes
- Visits are not possible during church services
- This tour runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. Exceptionally it is also possible on Fridays – in case you want to do the walk on a Friday, then please contact the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.
Contact details for visitors
2000 Antwerpen