Gruuthusemuseum, Musea Brugge

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The Gruuthuse Museum transports you to three crucial periods in the rich history of Bruges: the Burgundian period – the city’s flourishing heyday – the somewhat less well-known seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the historistical “rediscovery” of Bruges in the nineteenth century. These three periods come to life in the collection’s 600-odd pieces, each of which tells its own story. From majestic tapestries to unique Gothic stained-glass windows, from elegant wooden sculptures to historical lace, paintings, porcelain, and silver. The most remarkable part of the museum is the authentic late-fifteenth-century prayer chapel that connects the palace to the Church of Our Lady, with a view of the church’s Gothic choir.

The original copperplates of the city map by Marcus Gheeraerts (I) from 1562 and the painting The Seven Wonders of Bruges by Pieter Claeissens (I) recall the Bruges of the sixteenth century. The medieval sculpture collection includes a Reading Madonna by Adriaen van Wesel and a portrait of the young Charles V by Conrad Meit. There are many other impressive items, such as the Bruges tapestries from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the rich collection of lace from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Gruuthusemuseum is administered by Musea Brugge.

Nadia Vangampelaere, Curator of Sculpture, Furniture and Ceramics, and Guenevere Souffreau, Curator of Metal, Glass and numistics and Curator of Technical Art History (November 2022)