The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) announced the completion of a long-awaited renovation of the Dutch galleries. Today, the museum reopens the wing where a hundred Dutch masterpieces have found their permanent spot in the Brussels Old Masters Museum. Simultaneously, two temporary exhibitions have opened, completing the museum’s ‘Dutch Spring’:  Frans Hals Portraits: A Family Reunion and A Cabinet of the Most Delightful Drawings.

Information from the RMFAB, 1 February 2019

The nine, recently renovated, rooms put the painting of the Dutch Golden Age in the spotlight. Apart from Rembrandt, whose 350st death day is celebrated this year, it offers the opportunity to rediscover works by Frans Hals, Nicolaes Maes, Abraham Bloemaert, Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael and Pieter de Hooch. The “Dutch School” wing welcomes portraits, landscape, genre scenes and still lifes; and offers an extensive panorama of this fascinated artistic period.

After the long-awaited renovation (since 2005) of the Dutch galleries, about a hundred masterpieces finally get a well-deserved permanent spot in the Old Masters Museum. The RMFAB’s collection of Dutch art from this period – in total 320 art works – is the most important in Belgium, both in quality and quantity, and one of most beautiful in Europe.

The paintings are grouped by genre throughout the rooms: portraits, marines and landscapes, genre paintings, architectural paintings, fight scenes, historical paintings, animals and still lifes. The strength of the Brussels collection lies in the high quality of the works.

An important part of the exhibited works have been restored over the course of the last 25 years. It is the restoration of one of the collection’s masterpieces that was the basis for the creation of an exhibition about the family portraits of Frans Hals.

Events