In 1603, Rockox bought the house called Den Gulden Rinck (The Golden Ring), which is now number 10 Keizerstraat, together with the adjacent house at number 12, converting them into a single, handsome patrician residence.
After his death, the house passed to his nephew Adriaan van Heetvelde, with the stipulation that, if there were no descendants, it should be sold for the benefit of the poor. This occurred in 1715. Frans van Simpelvelt came to live in the house and had the Renaissance façade converted into the style then current, which explains the date 1715 on the façade.
Subsequently, the house passed from one owner to another and in 1949 was acquired by the non-profit association Artiestenfonds. At the prompting of Mr. Benoit Reese it was converted into a museum exhibiting chiefly neo-styles.
What was then the Kredietbank (now KBC) purchased the Rockox House from the Artiestenfonds in 1970. At the same time, under the auspices of the bank, the Stichting Nicolaas Rockox (Nicolaas Rockox Foundation) was set up, which was charged with the restoration of the property and which continues to manage it as a witness to a glorious past.
Restoration
After Rockox’s death, the house was repeatedly adapted to the requirements and taste of its successive occupants, although the actual structure of the ancient house remained intact.
The intention of the Kredietbank when it bought the property was to restore the seventeenth-century patrician residence to its former glory. Although no trace of old plans was uncovered, archives going back to 1532 were able to be consulted and yielded very interesting descriptions of the property upon conveyance. The historical value of the house was assessed by Professor Victor Blommaert and the requisite study was carried out by the architects charged with the restoration, J.L. Stynen and R. De Bruyn. The definitive restoration plan was synthesized from the various studies and was approved by the Royal Commission for Historic Buildings and the Landscape.
One of the most difficult tasks was to equip the house with the necessary modern comfort without intruding on the atmosphere of a 17th-century residence.
The original style of the façades and interiors was retained in the restoration. False ceilings and neo-style decorations were removed to allow what remained of the old original state to be seen to best advantage, but any reconstruction or alterations considered of value were left intact, in accordance with the generally accepted principles of responsible restoration.
The Rockox House was opened to the public on 20 April 1977.
Interior
Once restoration of the house had been completed, it remained for the interior to be furnished – no light task. After Rockox’s death in 1540, the entire contents were sold for the benefit of the poor and it was therefore naturally impossible to restore them – largely dispersed, as they were, among museums – to the Rockox House.
However, in the same way as for the restoration of the house, the endeavour was made to work with due regard for what was historically correct and was based on, among other things, three important contemporary documents.
- The first is the complete inventory of the contents of the house, drawn up on 20 December 1640, after Rockox’s death, by notary-public David van der Soppen. The public deed is in the archives of the Maagdenhuis (House of the Virgins), Antwerp.
Where the notary-public’s inventory is not altogether clear in its description of furniture and works of art, it can be interpreted on the basis of the many genre, art-gallery and still-life paintings of the seventeenth century.
- The second is the manuscript catalogue that Rockox made of his coin collection, which is now preserved in the Meermanno-Westreenianum State Museum, The Hague.
- The third is the important painting Burgomaster Rockox’s Art Gallery by Frans Francken the Younger (now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich), which was commissioned by Rockox and which portrays his beautiful art gallery the Groot Saleth (Great Parlour).
Authentic contemporary documents have thus made it possible for the richness of the interior of Rockox’s house to be suggested, without its original state being strayed from too far.
Evocation of an early seventeenth-century inner courtyard
Although there are no iconographic sources extant of the original inner courtyard, there are sufficient indications that Rockox had an exemplary town garden. He bought his patrician residence in 1603, complete with garden. The following year, he acquired the book Le théâtre d’agriculture by the architect Olivier de Serres, which includes guidelines for laying out a garden and the architect’s ground plans; it was these that prompted the evocation of a historical town garden. In 1609 and 1610, Rockox received a delivery of plants, shrubs and saplings from the French humanist and botanist Nicolaas Claude Fabri de Peiresc. Thanks to the letters accompanying the delivery having been preserved, it is known exactly what types of plant Rockox received. Lastly, there is also the inventory of the contents of the house, drawn up on 20 December 1640, after Rockox’s death, which mentions that Rockox had ten orange trees and two bay trees, which at the time were wintering in the cellars of the house.
It was on the basis of these and other documents that, in the spring of 2002, the inner courtyard of the Rockox House became a model of an early seventeenth-century town garden.
