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Document Details :

Title: Boedelstaten als sleutel voor de reconstructie van historische plattegronden
Subtitle: De evolutie van het Hotel d'Hane Steenhuyse in Gent in de 18de eeuw
Author(s): EVERAERT, Guido
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design
Volume: 35    Date: 2006   
Pages: 1-55
DOI: 10.2143/GBI.35.0.2029540

Abstract :
The Hotel d’Hane Steenhuyse is a large mansion in Ghent with a long architectural history. It consists of a amalgamation of a number of houses in the Veldstraat. Jonhkeer Jean Baptiste d’Hane bought a townhouse in 1698 which forms the nucleus of today’s much large building. He renovated it prior to 1705. His son Emmanuel Ignace and grandson Pierre Emmanuel each renovated in turn to create the mansion that today has remained largely intact.

A thorough study of 18th-century inventories and the architectural information has made it possible to reconstruct the floor plans of the smaller mansion from the first half of the 18th century. The 1705 inventories of the household effects and the paintings were significant and decisive in this study. They were compiled after the death of Marie Claire Mantels, the wife of J.B. d’Hane, and showed clearly that this aristocratic family wished to have done with the disturbance of the old central kitchen by building a new kitchen located further away. Their ground floor consisted of a dining room, various salons, a large reception room, a comptoir and a stairwell with vestibule. On the first floor there was a library, various apartments and bedrooms for the children.

The reconstructed inventories show that after the death in 1726 of Leopold Joseph, the eldest son who succeeded his now deceased father Jean Baptist as owner and inhabitant of the mansion, the building changed little from its 1705 condition.

A third inventory, compiled in 1736 after the death of Jeanne Therese d’Heyne, wife of Emmanuel Ignace d’Hane, describes a arrangement of rooms similar to that of 1705, although the rooms built in the new section are barely mentioned in the inventory. This may be because the renovation work was already underway.

Extensive renovations were carried out around 1768 by Emmanuel Ignace and, after his death in 1771, by his son Pierre Emmanuel. This resulted in the present floor plan of the mansion.

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