Jacob van Artevelde

The bronze statue of Jacob van Artevelde stands in the center of the Vrijdagmarkt, his right arm outstretched toward the English Channel. He wears a heavy mantle and a grim expression, cast in eighteen sixty-three to honor the fourteenth-century cloth merchant who steered Ghent through a trade crisis. Van Artevelde defied his count to secure English wool for local looms, keeping the city’s economy alive. He died in a riot on this very square, struck down by a mob of angry guild members.