Welcome to the museum’s jewel in the crown!

Louis de Gruuthuse has this oratory, or private chapel, built in the 1470s. From here he and his wife follow the services being conducted in the Church of Our Lady. From their chapel, Louis and Margaretha van Borsele look down on the church choir. As we still do today. In their day, the priest celebrates Mass in the church choir.

Louis receives permission to build the chapel from the church governors. It’s not straightforward, because a church window must be removed and a staircase has to be constructed to connect the church with the chapel. And what about the key? They make arrangements about that as well. In exchange Louis makes a number of donations to the church, including a series of expensive tapestries.

On the model you could explore under number 1 of this audio guide, there was a point where the Gruuthusemuseum was connected to the church. That point is the prayer chapel, where we are standing right now. Louis and Margaretha have the chapel luxuriously decorated. Traces of the decoration still give us an idea of what it looked like. The chapel is finished with panelling made from the very best oak from the Baltic region. The chapel walls are covered entirely in wood and the floor is covered in dark, wooden planks. The chapel itself is a rather narrow, long room, with windows at the end. When exploring the chapel, you soon come to a step, which leads to the elevation with the prayer bench. This prayer bench is covered in crimson fabric, the same as the window bench.

The vaulted ceiling is richly decorated. The entire ceiling was covered with gilded motifs that were custom-made for this space! Little angels support the vaulted ceiling: almost all of them are still original, and each one has a different face. Of course, we also find Louis de Gruuthuse's motto here, which we already know: ‘Plus est en vous’. Below the vaulted ceiling, between the angels we find the initials L and M, flowers and a bombard, or cannon. They also appear on the church side of the chapel.

The chapel was comprehensively restored in 2018. It has regained its former glory! Just like the renovated choir of the Church of Our Lady!

In order to reach the next room and the next floor, we take the spiral staircase to the right in the great hall. As in the prayer chapel, we find a number of references to Louis de Gruuthuse in the hall. We described them after the explanation under number 42 of this audio guide. We now move on to the next floor.