A medieval altarpiece… created in the 19th century
This great altarpiece looks as though it has survived through the centuries. Yet there is nothing medieval about it: it was installed in 1880, during the major Neo-Gothic restoration of the collegiate church.
The former Baroque high altar no longer suited the taste of the time. It was sold to a church in Maaseik, in Limburg, where it still survives. To replace it, the dean of Dinant turned to Jean-Baptiste Béthune, one of the great masters of Belgian Neo-Gothic art.
Béthune designed an altarpiece inspired by the great Brabant altarpieces of the 15th and 16th centuries. The sculptures were entrusted to the brothers Léonard and Léopold Blanchaert in Ghent, while the Liège painter Jules Helbig produced the painted panels. The ensemble was installed in 1880.
Look at its construction: sculpted scenes occupy niches in the centre, while painted wings at the sides can be closed. This is the very principle of the great altarpieces of the former Low Countries that inspired Béthune.
One detail, however, is anything but medieval: the imposing tabernacle at the centre. In the 15th century, the Blessed Sacrament was kept in a Eucharistic repository at the side of the choir. From the 17th century onwards, the tabernacle took its place at the centre of the high altar. The one in Dinant, made by the Liège silversmith Wilmotte, is particularly monumental.