The Mystic Lamb
12 panels in astonishing restored colour — history's most stolen painting.
Michael Kranewitter — CC BY-SA 3.0 nl · Gargarapalvin — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gargarapalvin — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gargarapalvin — CC BY-SA 4.0
St Bavo's Cathedral is home to Belgium's most famous painting and one of the most important in art history: "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" (the Ghent Altarpiece) by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck (1432) — twelve panels in revolutionary oil colours of uncanny precision, stolen, dismembered and hidden more than any other artwork (Napoleon, the Nazis in a salt mine, and the "Just Judges" panel missing since 1934 and never found). Fully restored (2012–2020), its astonishing colours are back. The altarpiece is shown in a dedicated chapel, preceded by the "visitor centre" in the crypt with augmented-reality technology: glasses that tell the story of the painting and cathedral across the centuries among the Romanesque crypt walls — an exceptional experience. The cathedral itself is imposing Gothic (thirteenth to sixteenth century) with an 89-metre tower, a rococo pulpit, and Rubens' "St Bavo Entering the Monastery". Cathedral entry is free; the altarpiece and visitor centre are ticketed. Ghent's spiritual and artistic heart — not to be missed on any account.
12 panels in astonishing restored colour — history's most stolen painting.
Glasses telling the painting's story among Romanesque walls.
"St Bavo Entering" and a carved rococo pulpit.
Sint-Baafsplein, 9000 Ghent
Belfry of GhentGhent's Belfry is the middle and most symbolic of the three towers: a fourteenth2 minutes walk4.5
Ghent City HallGhent's City Hall is an architecture lesson on one façade: its northern half (on3 minutes walk3.8
St Nicholas' ChurchSt Nicholas' Church is the first of the three towers from the quays and the olde4 minutes walk4.7
Graffiti Street (Werregarenstraat)Graffiti Street is a narrow, crooked alley in the heart of old Ghent turned into4 minutes walk4.3
Sint-JacobskerkA church in central Ghent gathering eight centuries of building into one structu5 minutes walk4.3In 1934 the "Just Judges" and "John the Baptist" panels were stolen from the cathedral; the second was returned, and the thief demanded a ransom and died without revealing the first's hiding place — still missing despite decades of searching, replaced by a copy. The whole altarpiece was taken by Napoleon and then the Nazis (rescued from a salt mine, as in "The Monuments Men"). A story worthy of the AR that tells it.