In de vijftiende eeuw is Brugge een kosmopolitische en dynamische stad, bekend om zijn boekenproductie. Luxeboeken nemen een centrale plaats in in de internationale handel en de Bourgondische cultuur.

Midden in die boekenwereld staat Colard Mansion, producent van luxeboeken. Aanvankelijk is Mansion de man van fraaie manuscripten, maar al snel legt hij zich toe op het gloednieuwe medium van het gedrukte boek. Mansion drukt de meest schitterende wiegendrukken of incunabelen van zijn tijd, in ee...

Innovative and pioneering, French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) created an extensive and complex body of work over her five decade-long career. Her work received international recognition as early as 1961 when her work was included in the important exhibition 'The Art and Assemblage' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since then Saint Phalle has been the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide. Her bright and joyful Nana sculptures have become known as her signature...

For more than 30 years, Jazz Hot, the world's oldest jazz magazine (created in 1935, as DownBeat), has regularly published Pascal Kober's photos, breakfast interviews, album and festival reviews and feature articles. Over the years, he has built up a unique catalog of more than 35,000 jazz photos taken all over the world. As a freelance journalist and photographer, he later contributed to many publications in the French and international press. The venue : musée de l'ancier évêchée. Locat...

From Sumatra to Java, from the Moluccas to Papua: across the whole of Indonesia, ancestors have played and still play a leading role. The cults and representations are evidence of an enormous diversity, power and poetry. This unique introduction to Indonesia starts out from cultural heritage, but also poses topical questions about the place of traditions and rituals in contemporary society. Never before exhibited archaeological and ethnographic treasures are brought together with unique foota...

In the early sixteenth century Bruges had a stable economic climate that was not to be compared with the heady heyday of the fifteenth century. A small but wealthy elite continued to commission works of art but in general demand was falling, though the quality of what was produced was still high. Around the same time, a number of leading humanists congregated in the city. Erasmus called Bruges the 'Athens of the North'.

The catalogue provides a sampling of Bruges's artistic production between...