In 1949 the National Centre for Research of the Flemish Primitives was founded as part of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels (IRPA/KIK). Its foundation was in part initiated by the study of Jan and Hubert van Eyck's altarpiece The Adoration of the Lamb, after its return from the salt mines of Alt Aussee near Salzburg after the Second World War. The results of this technical, iconographical and historical research were published in a richly illustrated volume.
For the Study Centre the Van Eyck research project was the starting point of a systematic cataloguing of fifteenth-century paintings from the Southern Netherlands. This ambitious project is carried out under the direction of an inter-university committee and in cooperation with national and international experts. The results are chronicled in three series of scientific publications: the Corpus, the Repertory and the Contributions.

The Study Centre has gradually developed into a documentation centre including:

  • a database of fifteenth-century paintings in the Southern Netherlands, arranged according to artist, location and subject matter,
  • a specialist library and
  • a photographic library containing over 35,000 photographs.

From 1993 to 2003 the Study Centre was renamed International Study Centre for Medieval Painting in the Scheldt and Meuse Basins. Since February 2003 it has been named after the famous Corpus title: Centre for the Study of fifteenth-century Painting in the Southern Netherlands and the Principality of Liège. It is under the auspices of the Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique and the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten.


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