1672: Patrician house, Wesel (Fischmarkt)

Address: originally Fischmarkt in Wesel, then Kornmarkt, then destroyed.
Open: Destroyed.
Parking: irrelevant
How to get there by public transport: You can’t. It’s been destroyed.
How good was it? It looks like it was really impressive.

Wesel, on the Rhine north of Duisburg, is 60 km west of Hansche’s native Olfen, along the valley of the rivers Lippe and Stever, and anyone travelling between Brussels and Olfen in the 17th century would have stopped off there. Incidentally, it was also the birthplace of Peter Minuit, the founder of Nieuw Amsterdam, now New York, and much later of Joachim von Ribbentrop.

In 1672, two lovely Christmas scenes were commissioned from Hansche for the ceiling of a patrician house on the Fischmarkt in Wesel, later occupied by the Rigaud family. There may well have been more than just the Nativity and the Nunc Dimittis originally, but this is all I could find, from this article. Click to embiggen:

I just love the arm of Anna the prophetess reaching up in adoration of the baby.

It may be worth noting that Wesel is the only Protestant town where Hansche is known to have worked. His Belgian employers are all known to have been Catholics and a lot of his work included explicitly Catholic themes. His other known German work was in the Catholic town of Kleve and he came from the Catholic German town of Olfen. The Rigaud family, who later lived in the Fischmarkt house in Wesel, were Catholics, but I have no information about the owners who commissioned Hansche. The other Hansche ceiling in Wesel was owned by Jews, at least in the late 19th and early 20th century.

After the Nazis took power in 1933, the Hansche ceiling in Wesel was moved from its original home in the Fischmarkt and reinstalled in the former castle of the Dukes of Kleve on the Kornmarkt, as part of the buildup of a new municipal museum. 97% of Wesel, including the Hansche ceilings, was destroyed in Allied bombing raids in February and March 1945, the heaviest being in March shortly before the town was captured by Allied ground forces. It is a cliché to say that a bombed-out city looks like the surface of the moon, but there’s some justification in this case.

The Fischmarkt has disappeared from today’s map, and the site of the old ducal castle where the Hansche ceilings would have been in 1945 is now the municipal cultural and education centre. No trace of the stucco survives.

Introduction: The amazing stucco ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche

(The one that might not be by Hansche in the Gent law library)

The ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche, from most to least amazing:

Leuven – Park Abbey | Modave Castle | Gent – Brouwershuis | Antwerp – Sacristy of the Church of St Charles Borromeo | Sint-Pieters-Rode – Horst Castle | Machelen – Beaulieu Castle | Gent – Canfyn House (in storage) | Wesel, Germany (Fischmarkt) (destroyed) | Kleve, Germany (destroyed) | Perk – Church of St Nicholas | Wesel, Germany (Zaudy) (destroyed) | Brussels – Church of the Sablon | Franc-Waret – Church of St Remigius | Aarschot – Schoonhoven Castle | Leuven – Priory of the Vale of St Martin (destroyed, little known)

The ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche, from earliest to latest date of creation:

1653: Antwerp – Sacristy of the Church of St Charles Borromeo | 1655: Sint-Pieters-Rode – Horst Castle | 1659: Machelen – Beaulieu Castle | 1666-72: Modave Castle | 1668-70: Perk – Church of St Nicholas | 1669: Franc-Waret – Church of St Remigius | 1670s: Leuven – Priory of the Vale of St Martin (destroyed) | 1671: Aarschot – Schoonhoven Castle | 1672: Wesel, Germany (Fischmarkt) (destroyed) | 1672/79: Leuven – Park Abbey | 1673: Gent – Canfyn House (in storage) | 1673: Gent – Brouwershuis | 1677: Kleve, Germany (destroyed) | 1677 Wesel, Germany (Zaudy) (destroyed) | 1684: Brussels – Church of the Sablon

The ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche, from most to least accessible to tourists:

Open to the public: Brussels – Church of the Sablon | Leuven – Park Abbey | Modave Castle | Perk – Church of St Nicholas | Franc-Waret – Church of St Remigius

Not normally open to the public: Antwerp – Sacristy of the Church of St Charles Borromeo | Sint-Pieters-Rode – Horst Castle | Machelen – Beaulieu Castle | Aarschot – Schoonhoven Castle | Gent – Brouwershuis

Not accessible: Gent – Canfyn House (in storage) | Wesel, Germany (Fischmarkt) (destroyed) | Wesel, Germany (Zaudy) (destroyed) | Kleve, Germany (destroyed) | Leuven – Priory of the Vale of St Martin (destroyed, little known)

The ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche, from west to east:

Gent – Canfyn House (in storage) | Gent – Brouwershuis | Brussels – Church of the Sablon | Machelen – Beaulieu Castle | Antwerp – Sacristy of the Church of St Charles Borromeo | Perk – Church of St Nicholas | Leuven – Priory of the Vale of St Martin (destroyed, little known) | Leuven – Park Abbey | Sint-Pieters-Rode – Horst Castle | Aarschot – Schoonhoven Castle | Franc-Waret – Church of St Remigius | Modave Castle | Kleve, Germany (destroyed) | Wesel, Germany (Fischmarkt) (destroyed) | Wesel, Germany (Zaudy) (destroyed)