Article: Saving Van Eyck: the very first article in the very first APOLLO, in January 1925, was an account by Paul Lambotte, director of fine arts for Belgium, of the removal of Van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb altarpiece from St Bavon in Ghent by the cathedral's clergy and its concealment from the occupying German forces.(From the APOLLO archives)

When war broke out and the Germans violated Belgian soil, those who were in charge of this altarpiece apprehended well the risks it was about to run. The wicked destruction of the library at Louvain, and the systematic looting of works of Art at Malines by German officers, well foreboded the destruction or theft of this superb masterpiece. Its fame would be a special attraction to the military robbers, who would have dispatched it at once to Berlin to be joined to the panels already possessed by the Kaiser Friedrich Museum.

Happily Canon Van den Gheyn was well on his guard. An archaeologist and historian, he was the right man at that moment to be the custodian of ...

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