Ghent's Mystic Lamb — the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck — is among the most important paintings in Western art. FFGR Belgium constructs a private Ghent art programme around the altarpiece, the SMAK contemporary museum, and the Design Museum.
The Ghent Altarpiece — Het Lam Gods, The Mystic Lamb — painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck and completed in 1432, is arguably the most significant single work in the history of Western painting. The altarpiece introduced oil painting at a technical level that transformed European art; it has been the subject of theft, dismemberment, and more wartime adventures than any other work in the Low Countries (it was stolen by Napoleon, looted by the Nazis, recovered by the Monuments Men, and is the subject of an ongoing multimillion-euro conservation project). The work hangs in St Bavo's Cathedral in the centre of Ghent, visible to the public in a specially constructed viewing room — but accessible to private guided visits outside public hours for groups with advance arrangement.
FFGR Belgium's Ghent art programme is structured around three elements: the Van Eyck altarpiece at St Bavo's, the S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst) for contemporary art, and either the Design Museum Gent (decorative arts, the most important design collection in Belgium) or the Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) for classical Flemish painting. The programme is designed for clients with a full day available from Brussels — typically departing at 09:00 and returning at 18:00.
The Van Eyck visit, when arranged as a private programme, is conducted by a specialist guide approved by the Cathedral administration — typically an art historian with a doctoral specialisation in Netherlandish painting. The visit covers not only the work itself but its physical journey through the centuries, which is as dramatic as the painting is beautiful. The conservation work currently underway is viewable through the glass panels of the conservation studio within the Cathedral, adding an additional dimension to the visit.
The SMAK programme is arranged in consultation with the museum's director of public engagement, who can facilitate access to the reserve collection or a conversation with the curator of a current exhibition for clients with specific contemporary art collecting interests. The Design Museum, recently relocated to the Vandenberghepand in the old city, is worth a visit for clients interested in twentieth-century European design, with particular strength in Art Nouveau Belgian furniture and post-war Flemish design.