Art et Patrimoine - Laurence Lenne

Art et Patrimoine - Laurence Lenne is delighted to unveil two gorgeous masterpieces at BRAFA 2026 from renowned Cornelis Floris II de Vriendt .

The two alabaster atlante putti presented here are attributed to Cornelis Floris II de Vriendt (1513-1575), a leading figure of the Flemish Renaissance and a central contributor to monumental sculpture and architecture in the sixteenth-century Low Countries. Executed circa 1560-1563, these sculptures are associated with the Tower of the Holy Sacraments of the church of the Celestine convent in Heverlee near Leuven, or with a related or connected structure.

The Celestine convent was founded from 1521 onward in accordance with the testamentary wishes of Guillaume II de Croÿ and quickly became a major artistic and funerary center for the Croÿ family. The richly decorated church housed tombs, a monumental stone rood screen, and numerous altars.

From the sixteenth century onward, the church suffered episodes of iconoclastic destruction, before being restored under Charles de Croÿ. Suppressed in 1784 by the edict of Emperor Joseph II, the convent was desacralized and ultimately devastated during the sack of the church on 13 July 1796 by the band led by Max le Roux, resulting in the large-scale destruction of its sculptural heritage.

The surviving sculptures were subsequently transferred to Leuven and later incorporated into public collections. Today, Museum M preserves two atlante putti from this church, one of which has been documented in the museum’s holdings since 1853. The second alabaster putto was acquired by the Museum M in 2017. This exceptional acquisition rightly made headlines in the press.

The two putti presented at BRAFA, originating from the same Belgian private collection, are stylistically and dimensionally comparable to those in the museum, yet display old fractures - most likely the result of the 1796 sack. Unlike the examples preserved at Museum M, they show no anchoring cuttings on the reverse, suggesting that they were not intended for wall attachment.

These elements support the hypothesis of a shared origin linked to the Tower of the Holy Sacraments, a seven-tiered monument erected between 1560 and 1563, although the possibility that they belonged to a related structure remains open...