The author, Leo Van Puyvelde (1882-1965), was a Flemish art historian and museum curator. In 1927, he was appointed chief curator of the Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium (Brussels). He was active in reorganizing the museum and changed the display of the works of art in the galleries. He believed that the aim of a museum is not only to preserve works of art, but also to make them accessible to the wider public for education and enjoyment. A number of the major works of art should be selected on esthetical grounds and displayed in the main galleries, whereas the lesser works may be placed in other departments, accessible to students and researchers only. The selected works should be enjoyed in their own right. As curator, Van Puyvelde was deeply committed to the conservation of works of arts, and established a modern laboratory in the museum in 1929-30. Cleaning old pictures was his main concern, but the procedure was rather controversial in those days. As an art historian, he was particularly interested in Flemish and Netherlandish painting, including the Van Eycks and the Flemish Primitives, Quinten Metsys, Bosch, Bruegel, and the masters of seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque: Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens.
https://dictionaryofarthistorians.org/puyveldel.htm
