My regular reader knows that I am fascinated by the seventeenth century stucco artist Jan Christiaan Hansche, a dozen of whose fantastic three-dimensional ceilings survive. I first encountered his work in the summer of 2021, and since then have tracked down almost all of what is left of it. Some of his best sculpture is preserved at Park Abbey near Leuven. This is their own (very short) promotional video.

A major exhibition opened last weekend at the Park Abbey, and of course I went to have a look for myself. There are displays about how he actually built the ceilings, with his apprentices, and talking heads explaining his difficulties with the guilds in Brussels. There are original invoices with his actual ink signature, an interesting contrast with the signature he puts in his ceilings.

Here’s my own humble attempt to convey the scale of the refectory, with its magnificent Last Supper.

To my delight, I found out about several Hansche works I had not known about. In the Abbey itself, the vestibule at the end of the museum gallery – a room I have stood in half a dozen or a dozen times before, without noticing the ceiling – has a fine Assumption.

And on display in the cloister is a panel from the demolished Canfyn House in Gent – not one of the five main decorative panels, just an cherub and surrounding imagery, but one I simply had not known about before.

Other displays told me about a couple of other now lost Hansche works. The old St Catherine’s Church in Brussels had Hansche ceilings in the aisle and transepts, demolished in 1893.

The exhibition also notes a lost ceiling in the Hôtel d’Ursel in Brussels, but I guess this may be known from documentary evidence only; the building was remodelled in the mid-18th century and then demolished entirely in 1960 – but I suspect that the Hansche ceiling was lost two hundred years earlier; we have photographic evidence of the ceilings lost in Germany in the twentieth century.

The exhibition also mentions a Hansche ceiling at the Château de Saint-Fontaine in Clavier not far from the impressive stuccos at Modave. This supposedly shows the family tree of Olivier-Renard de Saint-Fontaine, cavalry captain and high bailiff, and his wife. The exhibition implies that this ceiling survives, but the tourist guides to Saint-Fontaine tell me that the whole castle was rebuilt in 1820 after a fire, and again I don’t see any photographs. The castle is in private hands, but maybe I’ll see if I can contact the owners to clarify it.

It’s all very attractively laid out, with a children-friendly approach as well – do your own art, that kind of thing. And it’s open until 31 May. If you are in reach, do go and have a look.