It's about a mile from the Ghent Altarpiece, far from the Sint Bavo Cathedral in the city center.

That's why most art lovers don't even stop by the Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Ghent, Belgium.

Unfortunately, because which museum north of the Alps can call two paintings by Hieronymus Bosch its own?

Only the Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Or such magnificent ensors, to stay with the grotesque?

Maybe the Musée des Beaux Arts in Brussels.

The otherwise excellent collection of the Ghent house is mainly sorted by subject, and one of the largest rooms is devoted to historical paintings, including impressive seascapes.

The Belgian installation artist Patrick Van Caeckenbergh has just been allowed to set up a few interventions in it - and thus wonderfully continued the grotesque into the 21st century, among other things with a cigar box placed in the middle of the hall, heightened to the monumental and thus made accessible, in which he can be Atelier recreated.

In addition to this huge chipboard box, however, two graphic cabinets that are permanently set up in the room hardly come into their own.

One treasure after another

Each of their five drawers also offers fascinating insights into the museum's collection of drawings.

One treasure after the other comes to light from the last half millennium.

And the last drawer in the back cabinet has a bang: Belgian like Ensor, important like Bosch, exhilarating like Van Caeckenbergh - an original page by the comic artist Hergé from his "Tim and Struppi" album "Kohle an Bord" from 1958. Together with the corresponding one Draft page Hergé himself donated to the museum in 1979.

Given the tough business practices maintained by the foundation set up after the artist's death to administer the estate, and the prices paid (partly because of this) for Hergé originals, one can speak of the nonchalance with which the museum displays its rarity -Ensemble shows, just marvel.

And do people in Ghent actually know what they have there?

The labeling of both sheets as "project", i.e. draft, makes it doubtful.

Or is the understanding of comics in the comic nation of Belgium so consistent that the original is only seen on the printed page – an attitude that some protagonists of this art take?

Regardless, the casually presented page from “Coal on Board” in the Museum voor Schone Kunsten stands for a lot of coal, albeit below deck here.

But even the bottom drawer can still cause the greatest astonishment in Ghent.