Sablon

What is fascinating about this painting is the circular movement that the procession follows. The painting shows us almost the whole scene, almost. In fact, part of it is left out to the right and a good part to the left. The men holding the sumptuous statue of the Virgin and Child Jesus are barefoot, wearing white robes. The maidens are dressed in white and powder blue and parade with a candle in their hands.

From the houses overlooking the square, the public watches by crowding the windows, just like during a live TV broadcast of the Palio di Siena. On the ground floor of the houses, in the background, huge drapes can be seen, and above these can be seen hanging paintings. Just then, a bishop, wrapped in a golden stole, parades under a sumptuous canopy. The prelate clasps a reliquary in his hands. Everything contributes to a sense of calm movement. Looking closer, where the theory of houses breaks up, there is a trio. Two men and a woman are running down the street towards that tall, isolated red-brick building.

Their escape does not go unnoticed, someone points them out. Could they be thieves? Perhaps they have stolen coins from the pockets of the public distracted by the procession? The painter, who went to the Sablon to paint a religious ceremony, drags us with him into the Brussels of four hundred years ago, making us eyewitnesses of a crime.

In the aftermath of the misdeed, in the narrow streets of the city, we would hear: 'Yesterday at the Sablon, during the procession, it was full of pickpockets, there's no more religion!' and a toothless old woman with a cane would add: 'You have to be careful, have a hundred eyes, you go out to recite a novena and you don't know if you'll come home in one piece!'

• The work: Anthonie Sallaert, Procession of the Sablon maidens in Brussels, Royal Museums Sabauda Gallery
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