Art Museum

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium is an art museum in Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. 20 works from its collection are in this catalog, including Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and Claude Monet.

About Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Overview & Identity

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are the most popular art institution in the country, located in Brussels. The complex comprises six distinct museums, with two situated in the main building on the Place Royale: the Oldmasters Museum and the Magritte Museum. The institution holds a vast collection of over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and paintings, spanning from the early 15th century to the present day. It serves as a central hub for Belgian and European art, attracting approximately 715,000 visitors in 2010 alone.

History & Founding

The museum was founded on 1 September 1801 by the French administration following the seizure of artworks from religious and aristocratic collections during the French Revolutionary period. The core collection consisted of 'old deposits' of art seized by the French. The museum expanded significantly over the subsequent years through purchases, donations, and bequests. A major milestone occurred in 1914 with the De Grez donation, which enriched the collection with more than 4,000 works dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries, notably by artists such as Rubens and Van Dyck.

Building & Architecture

The main building, originally constructed as the Palace of Fine Arts, was designed by the architect Alphonse Balat. The structure features an extensive program of architectural sculpture, including four allegorical figures on the facade. The interior includes a vast rectangular main hall, formerly the Sculpture Hall and now the Forum, which was designed as an interior courtyard overlooked by a gallery. The Balat Staircase, consisting of four straight flights covered by a glass roof, is a prominent feature. A modern extension was added between 1962 and 1974, comprising an auditorium and 53 exhibition rooms.

Collection Highlights

The Oldmasters Museum houses an extensive collection of European paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the 15th to the 18th centuries, with a focus on the Flemish Primitives and the Baroque period. It holds the world's second-largest collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Magritte Museum, inaugurated in 2013, possesses one of the richest collections of works by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte. The Fin-de-Siècle Museum presents art from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, while the Constantin Meunier Museum is located in the sculptor's former house and workshop.

Significance & Modern Developments

In 2004, the museum embarked on a restructuring program to improve accessibility and reach a wider audience, a strategy that doubled visitor numbers and tripled turnover between 2005 and 2017. The institution has also engaged in significant ethical actions, such as the restitution of a painting to the heirs of a Jewish collector looted by the Nazis on 10 February 2022. Despite severe budgetary cuts in the 2010s, the museum maintained its status as a leading cultural destination through increased corporate funding and strategic management.