Skip to content

Smeyers, Maurits

    Full Name: Smeyers, Maurits

    Other Names:

    • Maurice Smeyers

    Gender: male

    Date Born: 1937

    Date Died: 1999

    Place Died: Lisbon, Portugal

    Home Country/ies: Belgium

    Subject Area(s): Flemish (culture or style) and manuscripts (documents)

    Institution(s): Catholic University of Leuven


    Overview

    Art History Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (1985-99); founder of the Centre for the Study of Flemish Illuminators. Smeyers grew up in Louvain, Belgium. Like his father, Andreas Smeyers, who published on historic Louvain and the nearby Vlierbeek Abbey, he was particularly interested in local history. He attended high school at St. Peter’s College in Louvain and went on as a history student at the Catholic University in the same city. After his graduation, in 1961, he accepted a position as high school teacher at the College of Our Lady in Boom, to the north of Brussels. In this early period he wrote a study on the excavations of the Vlierbeek Abbey, Vlierbeeks bouwwerf, which was awarded the “De Rees prize” by the Davidsfonds in 1964. In the same year he began his career at the Catholic University of Louvain, first as assistant under Professor Jan Karel Steppe at the Department of Archaeology and Art History. In 1967 he obtained a second degree in Medieval Studies, followed three years later by a doctorate, which he earned with a dissertation on the Turin-Milan Book of Hours, Het Turijns-Milanees getijdenboek. Bijdrage tot de van Eyck-studie (1970). For this study the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences, Letters and the Fine Arts of Belgium proclaimed him laureate of the Fine Arts section. He was appointed associate professor in 1985 and full professor in 1989. In his university teaching Smeyers covered iconology, book illumination, mediaeval art, Spanish art, and auxiliary sciences, such as heraldry. In 1983 he founded the Centre for the Study of Flemish Illuminators (now Illuminare: Centre for the Study of the Illuminated Manuscript). Under the Center’s direction Smeyers published the first nine volumes of Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts series. In 1993, both the sixth volume, Vlaamse miniaturen voor Van Eyck (ca. 1380 – ca. 1420) Catalogus, and Flanders in a European Perspective. Manuscript Illumination Around 1400 in Flanders and Abroad appeared. A 1996 exhibition, Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts 1475-1550 traveled to St. Petersburg, Florence, and Antwerp. In 1998 Smeyers organized three exhibitions on the occasion of the 550th anniversary of the building of Louvain’s famous Town Hall, Het Leuvense Stadhuis. Pronkjuweel van de Brabantse gotiek, Life in Louvain in the Late Middle Ages, and Dirk Bouts (c. 1410-1475), a Flemish Primitive in Louvain. A year before his death, a monograph on Dirk Bouts and Vlaamse miniaturen van de 8ste tot het midden van de 16de eeuw. De middeleeuwse wereld op perkament appeared. The latter, his magnum opus, is the standard work on Flemish miniatures. In April 1999 while participating in a congress in Lisbon, Portugal, he died unexpectedly. Smeyers’ daughter, Katharina, was also an art historian and an academic associate at the Centre for the Study of Flemish Illuminators from 1990 to 2003. His research in the field of manuscript illumination became a dominant factor in his scholarly life.


    Selected Bibliography

    [complete bibliography:] Smeyers, Katharina. “Bibliography of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers” in, “Als Ich Can”. Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers. Louvain: Peeters, 2002: pp. xxiii-xxxix; ed., Archivum Artis Lovaniense. Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van de kunst in de Nederlanden. Opgedragen aan Prof. Em. J.K. Steppe. Louvain: Peeters, 1981; Vlaamse miniaturen voor Van Eyck (ca. 1380 – ca. 1420). Louvain: Peeters, 1993; and Cardon, Bert, eds. Flanders in a European Perspective. Manuscript Illumination Around 1400 in Flanders and Abroad. Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 1993. Louvain: Peeters,1995; and Van der Stock, Jan, eds. Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts 1475-1550. Ghent: Ludion Press, 1996; Dirk Bouts: schilder van de stilte. Louvain: Davidsfonds, 1998; ed. Het Leuvense Stadhuis. Pronkjuweel van de Brabantse gotiek: tentoonstellingscatalogus. Louvain: Peeters, 1998; ed. Dirk Bouts (ca. 1410-1475, een Vlaams primitief te Leuven. Louvain: Peeters, 1998; Vlaamse miniaturen van de 8ste tot het midden van de 16de eeuw. De middeleeuwse wereld op perkament. Louvain: Davidsfonds, 1998, English, Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the mid-16th Century. The Medieval World on Parchment. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999.


    Sources

    Smeyers, Jozef. “‘Als Ich Can.’ Een leven in het teken van de kunst en de geschiedenis.” in Cardon, Bert, and Van der Stock, Jan, and Vanwijnsberghe, Dominique, eds. “Als Ich Can”. Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers. Louvain: Peeters, 2002.



    Contributors: Lee Sorensen


    Citation

    Lee Sorensen. "Smeyers, Maurits." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/smeyersm/.


    More Resources

    Search for materials by & about this art historian: