Museum complex · 1835 · Brussels, Belgium

Museum of Art and History of Belgium

The Art & History Museum in Brussels — the centrepiece of the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) — is one of the largest museums in Belgium and among the most significant encyclopaedic collections in Europe. Housed in a monumental neoclassical building in the Cinquantenaire Park, it displays over half a million objects spanning global civilisations from prehistoric times to the modern era, with outstanding holdings in Egyptian, Greek, Roman, pre-Columbian, Islamic and medieval European art and artefacts.

At a glance

Type: National encyclopaedic museum
Period: Founded 1835; current building inaugurated 1880 (Cinquantenaire complex)
Style: Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts architecture
Location: Parc du Cinquantenaire 10, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
Coordinates: 50.8397° N, 4.3942° E

Overview

The Royal Museums of Art and History are a group of museums in Brussels, Belgium, forming part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). The group consists of five museums: the Art & History Museum, the Horta-Lambeaux Pavilion, the Halle Gate, the Museums of the Far East and the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM). Together they constitute one of the most comprehensive museum networks in continental Europe, covering civilisations across six continents and five millennia.

History

The museum’s origins date to 1835, when the Belgian government established a national collection of antiquities and decorative arts in the spirit of the great European encyclopaedic museums of the nineteenth century. The collection found its permanent home in the Cinquantenaire complex, built to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Belgian independence and inaugurated by King Leopold II in 1880. Over subsequent decades the collections expanded dramatically through acquisitions, donations and Belgian colonial-era material from Central Africa and the Far East. Today the museum operates as a federal scientific institution committed to research, conservation and public access.

What you see

The Art & History Museum’s permanent galleries cover ancient civilisations of Egypt, the Near East, Greece and Rome; pre-Columbian Americas; Islamic art; decorative arts of the medieval and early modern periods; and a celebrated collection of Art Nouveau and Art Deco applied arts — particularly strong in Belgian work. Highlights include an exceptional Egyptian mummy collection, Gallo-Roman funerary monuments, Flemish Renaissance tapestries and a suite of rooms dedicated to the history of clockmaking. The Cinquantenaire building itself, with its triumphal arch and grand colonnaded wings, is a major monument of Belgian national architecture.

Cultural significance

The Royal Museums of Art and History represent Belgium’s principal national repository of world cultures, reflecting both the country’s imperial-era engagement with global civilisations and its remarkable domestic heritage of applied and decorative arts. The Art Nouveau collection is internationally recognised as one of the finest outside France, honouring Belgium’s foundational role in the movement. The museum complex anchors the Cinquantenaire Park, a listed monument that forms one of the defining urban ensembles of Brussels.

Practical information

Address: Parc du Cinquantenaire 10, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
Hours: Check the official RMAH website (kmkg-mrah.be) for current opening times and admission fees; closed Mondays

Getting there

Take Brussels Metro Line 1 or 5 to Merode or Schuman stations, both within easy walking distance of the Cinquantenaire Park entrance. Several tram and bus lines also serve the park perimeter. By car, the museum is situated on the eastern edge of the European Quarter, with paid parking available nearby. From Brussels-Central station, the journey by metro takes approximately 10 minutes.

Sources & resources

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The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (French: Mus&eacute;es royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Dutch: Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van Belgi&euml;) are among the leading museums in Belgium. They are located in the capital, Brussels, in the area called Coudenberg.



The museums consist of four different collections; two occupying the museum buildings (Museum of Ancient Art and Museum of Art), two located in other buildings.



The two independent museums, the Constantin Meunier Museum and the Antoine Wiertz Museum are smaller than the two main ones and dedicated in particular to Belgium.



The Museums host 20,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures from all over the world and from different historical periods from the 15th century to today. The museum boasts a collection of Flemish paintings, which includes works by Rogier van der Weyden, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Robert Campin, Antoon van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. An entire room is dedicated to Rubens, where twenty of the artist&#39;s masterpieces are exhibited. Another room is dedicated to Henri de Braekeleer, with twenty-three paintings.



It was none other than Napoleon Bonaparte who founded the museum, which, however, became a prestigious public cultural institution only with the independence of Belgium, enriched over the centuries thanks to private donations. The main nucleus of the collection is composed of the masterpieces of Hieronymus Bosch, Rogier van der Weyden, Petrus Christus, Dirk Bouts, Hans Memling, Lucas Cranach and Gerard David.



Six exceptional museums united under a single label: the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, often abbreviated to RMFAB). Of these, 10,000 are available online, but admiring them live in their elegant locations is a completely different emotion. This extraordinary museum complex is the flagship of the Belgian cultural scene and is an attraction not to be missed for all art lovers. You can admire the masterpieces of the great names of Northern European art, such as Magritte, Bruegel, Rubens, David, Rodin, Bacon, Khnopff, Moore, but also works by lesser known artists who have contributed to the evolution of art history. Each of the museums that make up the complex has its own history, its own objective and its own identity, but they all have in common a modern and well-kept layout and a vision of art as a precious heritage of humanity.

STATUE OF POU HAKANONONGA



The statue was donated by the people of Easter Island and the government of Chile following an expedition from the Royal Museum of Art and History (now the Museum of Art and History) in 1935.

It bears the name Pou Hakanononga, which loosely translates as &quot;god of tuna fishermen&quot;.

The name is quite recent and is not linked to the original role of the statue, but to the cultural renaissance of Easter Island after the near-genocide of the 19th century.

This 6-ton, 273 cm colossus was carved from solid andesite seven centuries ago, according to radiocarbon dating of the coal that was found in the foundations of the stone base on which this statue once stood.

Easter Island statues represent deified ancestors or local deities.

https://culturalheritageonline.com/places/museum-of-art-and-history-of-belgium-l3667/

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