Formes Du Salut

Book excerpt: Formes du salut invites you to privately discover seven sculptures and a painted panel from the Val Duchesse Abbey. These works are part of abbot Mignot's collection, they were bequeathed to the Royal Trust and were deposited at the Musée L. Via this book, the Museum wishes to highlight the conservation-restoration work carried out at the Institut royal du patrimoine artistique (IRPA), thanks to the Baillet Latour Fund: apart from its practical use, which guarantees the preservation, durability and transmission of this heritage for future generations, this intervention has made it possible to document the uses and history of the sculptures, often reworked according to the circumstances of their exhibition. Therefore, the share of these works in religious life and, more precisely, their role in the search for salvation by Christians, lies also at the heart of this book. Emmanuelle Mercier (IRPA), Erika Rabelo (IRPA) and Matthieu Somon (UCLouvain) have created a kind of religious art pragmatics and they reconstruct the inscription of the works in the religious life of the medieval period: the interactions were much livelier than their current presentation might lead one to believe!