Rubens, the 'prince of painters', on display in Brussels

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

BRUSSELS (AFP) — Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels opened Friday a major exhibition of almost 60 works by the 17th century Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens.

The exhibition, "Rubens, A Genius at Work," gathers masterpieces from the world's great museums -- the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The show, one of the major art attractions of the year in Belgium, is the fruit of four years of research and restoration by a team of experts.

Accessible to a wide audience, "its aim is to offer the public a better understanding of the way in which Rubens and his team created the masterpieces that we know today," said museum director Michel Draguet.

The collection contains oil sketches,...