Madonna meets Mad Meg

Museum Mayer Van den Bergh

Antwerp, Lange Gasthuisstraat 19

5/10/2019 – 31/12/2020

Madonna

The new exhibition at the Mayer Van den Bergh Museum unites two works of art. On the one hand, the recently restored masterpiece of the museum: Mad Meg from Bruegel. On the other hand, the Madonna by Jean Fouquet, a work from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. The museum is still closed, but luckily lets some of their works travel around. The Madonna has long been one of my favorites in the KMSKA collection. With the bright colors and the arrangement of the figures, it almost seems to be a contemporary work.

Florent van Ertborn & Fritz Mayer van den Bergh

The exhibition is not only about the two top works, but also wants to bring the collectors to the foreground. In the beginning of the exhibition you will find a bust of knight van Ertborn and a portrait painting of knight Van den Bergh. That is the only reference to them throughout the exhibition, except that these two are responsible for the works that you see in the different halls.

Museum and taste

The Mayer Van den Bergh Museum is busy giving itself a cooler look. Witness among other things the new logo that represents the portrait of the collector Mayer Van den Bergh. It would not look out of place at a coffee bar. Something unusual is also into the exhibition: next to Pieter Aertsen’s painting ‘Farmers company by the Fireplace’ there is a box with sweets. The attendant told me that there are different sweets with flavors from the painting. So it may just as well taste bad, he laughed, referring to the mussel shells depicted. I honestly did not dare to eat the candy.

Antwerp Museum App

You can use the Antwerp Museum App for a tour in the exhibition, each work in the exhibition is represented in the app with a small text. Like the above work with beautiful details: the ‘Man of Sorrows’, an alabaster work from the fifteenth century.