A sale of old and rare books, prints and drawings and a vast collection of 19th/20th cent. photographs of ships and vessels will be held Wednesday December 14 at 2pm. 

Biography Jean-François Van Puyvelde 
Ever since Jean-François Van Puyvelde was a child, aeronautics, trains but most of all everything that got to do with ships, was more than a passion to him. With only his bike at hand as a youngster, he drove to the busy shipping routes in Belgium to capture every ship and vessel that crossed his lense. From Ghent to Terneuzen, to the vast Antwerp harbour and its numerous ship yards.

This was only encouraged by his training on the 'Mercator', Belgium's most famous sailing ship. He got to discover the world by ship, and recorded many trips. At the outbreak of WWII he enrolled at the university in Southampton with some fellow Belgian marines and later served as a volunteer with the Royal Navy. After the war he served as lieutenant and later as captain for the rightly famous CMB, the Compagnie Maritime Belge. Later on, his career shifted, and he took several jobs as office manager on different locations in Europe for Sabena. But his passion raged on and he continued to make thousands of photographs and thus forming one of the largest collections known of ships and vessels worldwide (appr. 120.000 pieces). All extensively annotated and documented.

It's with pride we offer this enormous legacy.