It was in 1903 that Hendrik Slabbinck began a specialised embroidery workshop in Bruges, the Art Studio Slabbinck. The workshop quickly grew into a company with a worldwide reputation for manufacturing liturgical garments, altar linen and pennants. To get through the difficult period during WWII and to ensure the staff were not transported to labour camps, Hendrik Slabbinck and his son Maurice set their employees to making embroidery copies of works by the Flemish Primitive artists Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling. These copies are kept today in the family archive.