Choir: Mural paintings
that date from 1435. They were extensively restored at the end of the 19th century by Jean Van der
Plaetsen, professor at the academy. The choir paintings reveal the date when
the restoration was completed. On the left, an inscription in Dutch reads “Dit heeft
doen maken Willem Clutinck int jaer ons Heeren MCCCCXXXV”, or “This was
commissioned by Willem Clutinck in the year of the Lord 1435”. The Clutincks were members of
a powerful bourgeois family in Brussels.
Below the figures of the saints, in the lower section, are small panels
with medieval scenes: donors in a position of prayer or coats of arms. The
restoration of the paintings and spandrels by the Royal Institute of Artistic Heritage (IRPA),
thanks to a generous patron and subsidies from the Brussels-Capital Region, returned
the numerous representations of saints to their original splendour.
A sample of these saints are on the right wall; the paintings are
later than those on the left.
In the first bay, are Saint Gertrude, Saint Roch, Saint Cornelius, Saint
William and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary.
Saint Gertrude, daughter of Pepin of Landen, and sister of Saint Begge, lived in the 7th
century and retired to the monastery that her mother had founded in Nivelles.
Saint Roch, born into a noble family in Montpellier in the 14th century, distributed his possessions
to the poor and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he was struck down by the plague. Abandoned by everyone,
he took refuge in the forest, where God healed him. On his return to France, he lived in penance and
practiced a charitable life. The dog that accompanies him, carrying a loaf of bread in its mouth, refers
to the dog that provided for him when he was abandoned in the forest.
It has an expression of a pug.
Saint Cornelius became pope in the 3rd century. Exiled from Rome by the emperor, he was
decapitated. He is therefore represented as a pope wearing a tiara and holds a horn in his hand,
a reference to his name.
Saint Guillaume de Maleval, a valley near Siena, was a contemplative hermit who
lived in the 12th century. After a military career and a dissolute existence, he made
the three great pilgrimages on the advice of Bernard de Clairvaux:
Santiago de Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem. He then returned to live as an anchorite in
Italy and soon had disciples, known as the Guillemites. This is the origin of the name of the
Guillemins train station in Liège.
Saint Elizabeth was the daughter of the King of Hungary in the 13th century. A young widow, she joined the
Franciscan Third Order and henceforth devoted herself solely to charity. Her
appearance in the Sablon church shows her dressed in the habits of the nuns of the order that bears
her name.
