Experience the Golden Age of Flemish Art with Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools at ROM

TORONTO, May 28, 2025 – This summer, the Golden Age of Flanders will come alive at ROM as the Museum hosts Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks, from June 28 to January 18, 2026. This featured exhibition will reveal the immense creative talent and innovation of the artists of the Southern Netherlands during the renowned medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods.

Drawing from Belgium-based The Phoebus Foundation’s world-class collection of Flemish art, the exhibition offers a whirlwind tour of Flanders from 1400 to 1700, through the lens of the most prominent artists working in the era – including Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Hans Memling, Jan Gossaert, Jan Brueghel, Clara Peeters, Jacob Jordaens, Frans Francken II, and Michaelina Wautier, among many others.

With a rich selection of artworks that represent the pinnacle of achievement through over 300 years of artistic expression including the invention of oil painting, alongside stunning decorative art objects and impressive bronze sculptures, Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools showcases over 80 rarely exhibited artworks by some of the most celebrated luminaries of the period.

“Teeming with sumptuous beauty and rich symbolism, Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools captures the brilliance of this artistic period and the many ways in which it continues to shape our world today,” said Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. “The exhibition’s paintings, sculpture, and silverwork also speak to timeless themes – from globalization to human nature – that are bound to resonate with a contemporary audience.”

“This exhibition transports visitors to historical Flanders – a small but mighty society that was seeking to establish itself in a fast-changing, increasingly globalized world. Artists played a crucial role, inventing new genres, styles, and even the art market as we know it. It is fascinating to look back and recognize how influential these artists really were, and how what happened during this period shaped the world we live in today,” said Chloé M. Pelletier, Curator of European Art (before 1800) at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and guest curator of the presentation at ROM. 

“As our Flemish masterpieces prepare to take center stage at the Royal Ontario Museum, they bring with them a whirlwind of passion, rebellion, and ingenuity. This exhibition isn’t just about looking at art – it’s about immersing yourself in 300 years of audacity, beauty, and raw human emotion,” said Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren, Executive Director of The Phoebus Foundation.

Divided into thematic sections, the exhibition takes visitors through a comprehensive tour of some of most important motifs and stylistic modes that underscore the Flemish artistic renaissance. During this period, Flanders was home to some of the most dynamic centres for the European elite, with Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp acting as major cosmopolitan hubs for global commerce and culture. These bustling cityscapes are the starting point for the exhibition, showcasing how these important urban areas produced some of most influential works of art, including Jan Wildens’s Panoramic view of the city of Antwerp across the River Scheldt.

The exquisitely rendered religious art of the era is the core of the next portion of the exhibition, where visitors will see firsthand the rich detail and symbolism inherent to this artwork – exemplified through the work of Hans Memling and the striking panel painting The Birth of Christ, which speaks to this technical prowess and skill.

The third section of the exhibition showcases how portraiture also becomes an increasingly important method for self-representation through highly performative and composed paintings including some of the first commissioned images of middle-class people – such as the large-scale Double Portrait of a Couple by Jan Sanders Van Hemessen, which points to the significance of portraits as political and social currency.

Next, behaviours deemed sinful in the era – including greed, lust, and gluttony – are embodied through humorous works that reflect the social context in which they were made and often ridicule human flaws, such as Rebus: The World Feeds Many Fools, a riddle painting by Jan Massijs that is packed with visual puzzles.

The revival of Greco-Roman art and culture also comes into focus with expansive works which draw on mythology and the natural world, with a proliferation of figures along with a new scientific understanding of the human body through the study of anatomy. This is particularly evident in the most monumental artwork in the show, Diana Hunting with her Nymphs – a Rubens oil painting of the goddess Diana chasing prey with a spear in hand, commissioned by Spanish king Philip IV for his new hunting lodge near Madrid.

Widespread unrest and political upheaval also informed the period’s creative expression as the Protestant Reformation influenced much of what was created during this time – including developing styles that spoke to these dramatic changes, as seen in allegorical scenes such as Everyone to His Taste by Michaelina Wautier. 

The notion of a ‘Wunderkammer’ or a cabinet of curiosities will be recreated in the final section of the exhibition, allowing visitors to see firsthand how the culture of art collecting came to inform the concept of the modern museum. 

Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools offers up a visual feast of some of the most compelling artworks of this period, as well as a new way to appreciate an immensely influential region that came to define the history of art as we know it today.

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated 432-page art book written and edited by Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren, Executive Director of The Phoebus Foundation. From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders offers an in-depth exploration of Flemish art and is available in both English and French editions at the ROM Boutique.

Membership

ROM Members will have the first opportunity to visit Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks, on Friday, June 27, and Saturday, June 28, 2025. Tickets are free for ROM members. Visit joinROM.ca for more information about ROM membership.

Credits and curatorial team

Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks is co-organized by the Denver Art Museum and The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp (Belgium). The exhibition is curated by Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren, Executive Director of The Phoebus Foundation, and ROM’s presentation is curated by Chloé M. Pelletier, Curator of European Art (before 1800) at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Acknowledgements

This exhibition is generously supported by the Royal Exhibitions Circle.

Image credits: Hendrick De Clerck & Denijs Van Alsloot, Paradise with four elements, 1613. Oil on copper. © The Phoebus Foundation.