Jacques de Baerze

Who is Jacques de Baerze?

Jacques de Baerze was a Flemish sculptor in wood, two of whose major carved altarpieces survive in Dijon, now in France, then the capital of the Duchy of Burgundy.

De Baerze probably came from Ghent, and lived in Dendermonde some thirty kilometres away, which is also not far from Antwerp and Brussels. He was clearly a well-established master before the death in January 1384 of the local ruler, Louis II of Flanders, Duke of Brabant, as two commissions from Louis to produce carved altarpieces are recorded, though the works have not survived. These were for the chapel of the castle of Dendermonde, and the hospice of the Cistercian abbey of Bijloke, then just outside Ghent.

These works were noticed by Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Louis' son-in-law and successor as Count of Flanders. In 1385 Philip had founded a Carthusian monastery, the Charterhouse of Champmol, then just outside Dijon, as the dynastic burial-place of the Burgundian Valois, and was filling it with impressive works of art.