Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal
— — a spire the Low Countries grew up around.
Not only on a wall.
“The Cathedral of Our Lady rises over the cobbled streets of old Antwerp, a Gothic church begun in 1352 and still, after seven centuries, the tallest in the Low Countries. The north tower carries a carillon of 49 bells that rings the quarter-hour above the Grote Markt. Inside, four Rubens panels hang where they were commissioned to hang. The afternoon light comes through clear leaded glass and falls slowly across the limestone floor. from the studio
Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, 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 Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, the Cathedral of Our Lady, is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Antwerp in Flanders, Belgium. Construction began in 1352 on the site of an earlier Romanesque chapel and continued in stages until 1521, when work on the planned south tower was abandoned. The completed north tower rises 123 metres, the tallest church spire in the Low Countries, and a UNESCO World Heritage component as part of the Belfries of Belgium and France inscription. The building seats about 25,000 and is the largest Gothic church in the Low Countries by floor area.
The cathedral is built of pale Lede limestone and Gobertange stone, quarried in Brabant and brought up the Scheldt by barge. The nave runs 118 metres along the length of the church, supported on seven aisles — an unusual plan that gives the interior its long, level horizon. The north tower carries the Hemony carillon, 49 bells cast in the seventeenth century by François and Pieter Hemony, and is played weekly during the summer season. The iconoclasm of 1566 and the French Revolution stripped much of the original furnishing; what remains was reinstalled across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Four panels by Peter Paul Rubens hang inside, all commissioned for the cathedral: The Raising of the Cross, The Descent from the Cross, The Resurrection of Christ, and The Assumption. They have hung here, with intermissions for war and restoration, since the early seventeenth century. The cathedral is open to visitors most days for a modest fee, with reduced hours during services. It stands at the corner of Handschoenmarkt and Groenplaats in the medieval centre, a short walk from the Grote Markt and the Scheldt quayside.