CARVES: A day in Genoelselderen and Tongeren

On Monday 28 September, the CARVES team travelled to the church of Genoelselderen, where they met the members of the church council, the concierge and the parish priest. They were welcomed in true Limburg style, with coffee and something sweet on the side.

Once settled in, the team turned to the paint layers on the church's oldest altars, looking for pigments that might match the tiny traces of paint still visible on the ivory. The team was also given the chance to go through the church archives, searching for clues about the building's earlier interior, and perhaps even a hint as to how the ivory panels ended up there in the first place.

In the afternoon, the CARVES team headed to Tongeren, to the Teseum museum next to the basilica. There, a gospel book cover set with ivory, is kept: a book with its own eventful history. Its ivory carving is somewhat younger than the Genoelselderen panels, but the fact that it still serves its original purpose as a book cover made it fascinating comparison material, helping the experts picture how our own panels were once mounted in a book, and what traces of that they might still expect to find.

A warm thank you to the faith community of Genoelselderen and to the museum staff at Teseum Tongeren, for such a generous welcome. May this be the start of many more good things to come.