Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium is one of the most famous museums in Belgium.

The museum

The museums are in the capital of Brussels in the downtown area on the Coudenberg. There are four museums. Two of them, the Museum of Ancient Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Brussels, are in the main building. The other two, the Constantin Meunier Museum and the Antoine Wiertz Museum, are dedicated to specific Belgian artists. They are much smaller and are a few kilometers from the city center.

The Royal Museum has over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and paintings, which date from the early 15th century to the present. The museum has a large collection of Flemish painting, among them paintings by Bruegel and Rogier van der Weyden, Robert Campin, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens. The museum is also proud of its "Rubens Room", which houses more than 20 paintings by the artist.

The building

The main building, which now houses the Museum of Ancient Art, was built as the Palais des Beaux-Arts. It was designed by Belgian architect Alphonse Balat and paid for by King Leopold II. The building was completed in 1887.

Royal Museums Of Fine Arts Of Belgium Media

The Brussels Salon of 1830 in the Palace of Charles of Lorraine, rendered by Jean-Baptiste Madou
The palace in 1846, illustration from Guide pittoresque dans Bruxelles
Map of the palace and Museums district in 1880
The Palace of Fine Arts, the museum's second (current) location, in 1910
Interior of the Palace of Fine Arts in 1910
Installation of the Magritte Museum in the Hôtel du Lotto, on the Place Royale/Koningsplein, in 2008
View from the upper floor of the Oldmasters Museum
The Jacob Jordaens Room
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1558
Hôtel du Lotto or Hôtel Altenloh, home of the Magritte Museum