Church of Our Lady
— — the tallest brick steeple in the Low Countries.
Not only on a wall.
“The brick spire rises 115 metres over the rooftops of Bruges, visible from every canal in the old town. Inside, in a side chapel, sits a small white Madonna by Michelangelo — the only sculpture of his to leave Italy in his lifetime, sent north by a Flemish merchant in 1504. The church holds it the way a town holds a quiet secret: matter-of-factly, with a low railing, no fanfare. People come in from the rain, sit for a while, leave. from the studio
Church of Our Lady, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Church of Our Lady (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk) stands in the historic centre of Bruges, in the Belgian province of West Flanders, a short walk south of the Markt and the Belfry. Construction began in the 13th century and continued in stages into the 15th, in the brick-Gothic idiom of the Low Countries. Its tower reaches roughly 115 metres, making it one of the tallest brick structures in the world and the tallest in Belgium. The historic centre of Bruges was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, and the church is one of its anchor monuments, visible from canals across the old town.
The signature relic is the Madonna of Bruges, a marble sculpture of the Virgin and Child carved by Michelangelo around 1504. It is the only work by him known to have left Italy during his lifetime, bought by the Flemish cloth merchants Jan and Alexander Mouscron and donated to the church. Roughly 128 centimetres tall, the Virgin sits with the Child standing forward at her knee — an unusual composition for the period. The church also holds the bronze tomb effigies of Charles the Bold and his daughter Mary of Burgundy, both of which sit in the choir behind the high altar.
The church is on Mariastraat, a few minutes' walk from the Markt and directly across a small canal from the Sint-Janshospitaal. The Madonna chapel and the choir with the Burgundian tombs are inside a paid museum section managed by Musea Brugge; the nave can be visited for prayer without a ticket. Opening hours run most days outside major liturgical holidays. The historic centre is closed to most through-traffic, so visitors arrive on foot from the train station (about a 15-minute walk) or from a canal boat landing on the Dijver.