Thursday Doors – July 5, 2018

Earlier I posted doors from Rembrandt’s house-turned-museum, in Amsterdam. Today I post doors from “The Rubens House,” a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, that used to be the home of the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens. The painter lived and worked in the house from 1610, when he and his wife bought it, until his death in 1640. The building has been almost completely rebuilt and refurbished and displays, among other things, works by Rubens himself as well as other artists, including Anthony Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. And I also found some quite beautiful doors there…

Peter Paul Rubens. Self-portrait.

Thursday Doors – June 21, 2018

These are the doors of the “De Zwarte Panter” (The Black Panther) art gallery in Antwerp, Belgium. The building, which was closed that day, was an old church converted into an art gallery. I loved the sculpted panther on top of the studded door, which is also quite pretty. Aside from the two studded doors, I also liked the pretty fountain next to the main door, and was amused by the banana painted on the brick wall. I thought it might be a Banksy, but a fellow blogger did some research and found out who did it. Check his comment below. And since this is about Antwerp, I’m throwing in an unrelated photo of a lovely sculpture found in a square in the city center. Those are characters from the novel “A Dog of Flanders”, by English author Marie Louise de la Ramée, about a Flemish boy named Nello and his dog Patrasche, which is set in Antwerp. Not a door, but isn’t it just lovely?