The preaching pulpits in the Antwerp and Mechelen cathedrals by Michiel van der Voort and that in the St Gudule in Brussels by Hendrik Frans Verbruggen, as well as the carved confessionals covered with statues, which have lost all resemblance to furniture, may scandalise purists. To us they represent the most characteristic and the most convincing product of the inventive imagination of northern Baroque: there is nothing else like it outside Belgium.
