Exhibitions
The Prado Museum brings together four Flemish gems from an exceptional series on the Brussels festivities of 1615
The Prado National Museum has incorporated for the first time into its exhibition tour The Procession of Giants in Brussels on May 31, 1615 , a prominent work by the Flemish painter David Noveliers, created in 1616. Acquired by the Ministry of Culture in 2024, the canvas can now be seen in room 80 alongside three other paintings belonging to the same series, in a renewed presentation that underscores both its artistic value and its extraordinary historical relevance.
The work is part of an exceptional collection commissioned by Isabella Clara Eugenia and Albert of Austria, sovereigns of the Southern Netherlands on behalf of the Spanish Monarchy. The series depicts various celebrations held in Brussels in May 1615, festive and ceremonial events in which the rulers themselves participated, and which constitute a valuable visual record of the public and ceremonial life of the period.
The arrival of this painting at the Prado is of singular importance, as it allows the museum to reunite four of the six surviving paintings from a series that originally comprised eight large canvases. Two of the remaining works are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, while the other two remain missing, making this partial reunion an event of particular interest to historians, curators, and visitors.
The new presentation of the collection has been further enhanced by the addition of frames specifically designed for these paintings. Created based on historical, artistic, and documentary research, these frames are inspired by 17th-century Flemish models and aim to restore the works to an appearance closer to what they must have had in their original context. This intervention not only improves the visual presentation of the collection but also fosters a more coherent understanding of the series from both an exhibition and historical perspective.
The paintings commemorate long-standing festivities in Brussels, celebrated periodically since the Middle Ages. These included crossbow competitions, religious ceremonies in the Sablon district church, and the famous processions known as the Ommegang , one of Flanders' most emblematic civic rituals. These celebrations continue to this day: since 2019, the historic Ommegang processions have been inscribed by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
With this acquisition, the Prado not only enriches its collection of Flemish paintings, but also brings back to the public one of the great visual narratives of courtly ceremony in Habsburg Europe. The exhibition of The Procession of Giants in Brussels on May 31, 1615, alongside the rest of the series, offers an exceptional opportunity to rediscover the political, festive, and symbolic dimensions of celebrations that shaped the cultural identity of Brussels in the 17th century.
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