Brussels, Belgium
Free University of Brussels / Ghent University

The symposium Constructing Wooden Images, Organization of Labour and Working Process of Late Gothic carved altarpieces in the Low Countries was organized in Brussels on October 25th and 26th 2002 by the Department of Art Sciences and Archaeology of the Free University of Brussels and the Laboratory of Wood Technology of the University of Ghent. The symposium was part of a methodological and interdisciplinary research project on the characteristics, evolution and socio-cultural significance of the carved altarpieces of Brabant (15th – 16th centuries), conducted by both universities from 2001 to 2004, in collaboration with the Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. The research of the project, and consequently also the symposium, which had the intention of making public its provisional results, focussed on the socio-economic background of the considerable production of carved wooden altarpieces of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance in the Low Countries, especially in the old duchy of Brabant, and also on the actual construction of such works.