Borremans, with Luc Tuymans one of Belgium’s two greatest living painters, first came to the Queen’s attention five years ago when he exhibited at the City Museum for Modern Art (Smak) in Ghent. She later contacted him personally and suggested he might like to add to the collection of modern art she is gradually building up, with the assistance and advice of former Smak director Jan Hoet.

“I was allowed to come and look at the rooms in the palace to see if they would inspire me to do something,” he explained. “It gave me a chance to work in a context far removed from the art world.” Inspiration came in the shape of 17 paintings of footmen, six of which are on show. “I visited the palace several times,” he said. “Each time I was waited on by footmen. That’s the way it is at every court. The footman is a permanent feature, always present in the background. So he becomes a metaphor for continuity.”

In addition to that, Borremans points out that his portraits of footmen will now hang in the midst of portraits of former royals and other nobles. His commission thus becomes a tiny act of social levelling.

And of revolution, for these are no ordinary, obsequious and self-effacing footmen. Each painting depicts a single model in livery – Borremans was given a genuine 19th-century example to work from – but with something not quite right. In one painting, the footman is cutting into his own finger; in several, his jacket is on back to front; in yet another, he appears to be poking his finger in his own eye. Some reports have called the works surrealist, but that doesn’t describe their air of menace. One wonders what the shuffling hordes of tourists will make of them.

The Royal Palace is open daily except Monday from 10.30 to 16.30, entry free.

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