Royal historical Commission

The Archives de Bethune at Marke Castle (near Courtrai, in Belgium) include two bundles of correspondence between German politician and art theorist August Reichensperger and Belgian architect and stained-glass artist Jean-Baptiste Bethune. This piece, with a critical introduction and extensive footnotes, is the first critical edition of this correspondence. The convolute of letters comprises approximately 90 letters (in German and French) from 1858 to 1891, as well as a number of written documents in a different hand. The documents cover artistic subjects, e.g. the shared piece at Aachen Cathedral, their long and numerous journeys and the enormous political changes caused by, among others the ‘Kulturkampf’ in Germany and the School struggle in Belgium. The correspondence also provides an insight into the privacy of two very different personalities who were nevertheless connected by a shared mission: the neo-gothic movement in Europe.