Béguinage

1970 · B100511 — Leuven, s.d. (1970's) Collection of 15 original colour photographs, size ca. 13 x 14 cm., kept in an album (and easily removable if wanted). In fine condition. The photographer Paul Victor Maes was a painter from Louvain (Belgium, °1924, cfr. Arto 2000 II p.95). These pictures were made in the 1970's as documentation for paintings he made or intended to make. They depict mostly portraits of Louvain beguines. They have an important iconographical value as they portray the last three remaining beguines - sister Virginie, Colette and Julia - in their traditional surroundings. The last beguine left the Louvain beguinage in 1988. So these pictures document the ultimate moments of the once very important beguinage mouvement which had its roots in 12th century Flanders and had spread out, at the height of their development, all across North-Western Europe. B100511