In 2021, the Belgian Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage organised a public Challenge poll; almost 12,000 people could their favourite restoration project. The Funerary Chapel of Rubens won the contest!
If you manage to find your way in this church, you ‘ll get a big surprise! The hustle and bustle of the city immediately gives way to a feeling of calm. The grand dimensions in width and height are in harmonious proportions; those who are sensitive to this, will feel uplifted rather than depressed.
As soon as St. James’ s Church and Rubens’s funerary chapel are fully accessible, we will include this important stop in our walking programme. For the time being, you can have an online look at his ‘Madonna surrounded with the saints’ (linked to our Dutch page with reproduction).
With Rubens ‘s house being on the Wapper, Saint James’s had become his parish church: the youngest child he had with Isabella Brant and the five children from his second marriage were all baptized here. The font dates from 1624 ; so it is an authentic object from Rubens’ s time!
The family was also tied together by death: Helena Fourment, who died at the age of 59 in 1673, “by a long and unfortunate illness” (in the original French ”par une longue et fâcheuse maladie”), was laid to rest in Peter Paul’s burial chapel; she has not been buried with her second husband. Her daughter Clara Johanna followed in this grave in 1689, and so happened with Clara’s husband in 1699.
In the south aisle, on the wall against the heavy pillar under the tower, you’ll find the epitaph of Anthony van Dyck’s teacher, Hendrick van Balen and his wife Margaretha Briers; the funerary monument shows van Balen’s own painting ‘The Resurrection of Christ’.
Jordaens’ s painting, ‘The Calling of Peter‘, can momentarily be seen in the SnijdersRockox House, in our North Route.
Route East continues: leave the St. James, turn right and right over Sint-Jacobsmarkt, until you turn left into the Korte Sint-Annastraat. Through the student neighbourhood you walk across the Ossenmarkt to the Rodestraat, to the entrance of the Antwerp beguinage.
