Frans Baudouin collection

As curator of the Rubenshuis and the erstwhile Rubenianum, Frans Baudouin (1920-2005) kept an extensive working archive. It was given a special place in the collections after his death. The archive includes notes and correspondence relating to exhibitions, publications and research projects. 

Frans Baudouin studied history and art history at the Catholic University of Louvain, graduating during the Second World War. He started his military service in 1946. He served as a Belgian intermediary with the Monuments and Fine Arts Division of the occupying U.S. army in Germany. His main task? He tracked down art stolen by the Nazis from Belgian churches, in southern Germany and Austria. Shuttling between Brussels and Munich, he also led the interrogations of the alleged perpetrators. 

In 1948, Baudouin became a scientific collaborator in the painting department of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There he got to know Ludwig Burchard and Roger-A. d’Hulstt, among others. In 1950, he returned to Belgium as deputy curator of the Rubenshuis in Antwerp, which opened as a museum in 1946. He subsequently became curator. 

Baudouin was the driving force behind the creation of the Rubenianum - the research centre for Flemish art. He also successfully brought top-tier works into the museum, thereby significantly increasing visitor numbers. He organised numerous exhibitions, was Belgian president of the International Council of Museums from 1968 to 1970 and was honoured in 1985 with the Joost van den Vondel Prize by the Töpfer Stiftung and the University of Münster. He was appointed honorary doctor by the University of Antwerp.  

In his younger days, he dreamed of earning a PhD on the 18th-century architect Jan-Pieter van Baurscheit de Jonge. In 1994, he used his documentation for an impressive publication on the architect.