Museum Monday: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Flemish Masterpiece & Fin-de-Siècle Dreamscapes

Mar 03, 2025

(4 min read) Brussels' Royal Museums of Fine Arts house two of Europe’s great collections — one focused on the luminous mastery of the Old Masters, the other on the dreamlike elegance of the fin-de-siècle.

NB: I am beginning a new feature in this series, a section before the final practical information called “Art in Detail” — this includes links to Instagram Posts and Substack Notes which feature short descriptions and multiple photos (usually 5-12) about specific works of art from the museum.

1. The Great Hall around which the Old Masters collection is focused.

Overview

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are a collection of five museums in Brussels. The two most important collections — which this post is about — are the Oldmasters & Fin-de-Siècle, housed in connected buildings and accessible with a single ticket. If you love Flemish painting or the swirling aesthetics of Art Nouveau, this place should be high on your list of museums to explore

2. A late 15th century triptych by an anonymous master.

3. “Circe” (1904) by Gustav Adolf Moses above a glazed fireplace (c1900) by Desire Muller.

The Oldmasters Museum is located in a late 19th century neoclassical building, designed by Alphonse Balat as part of a larger cultural district in Brussels’ Royal Quarter. At its core is a great central hall (figures 1 & 7) , a stately, light-filled space surrounded by upper galleries. The Fin-de-Siècle Museum, by contrast, is housed in a contemporary underground space (figures 5 & 9). The two buildings make for a fascinating juxtaposition between two artistic worlds.

4. A gallery featuring Counter-Reformation art.

5. 19th century sculptures and paintings.

The Oldmasters Museum features pieces from the 15th to 18th centuries, largely built around Flemish artists. I have a massive soft spot for the great paintings form the 14th to 16th centuries known as the “Flemish Primitives” and the “Northern Renaissance,” and found myself spending most of my time in this part of the museums in the galleries that feature the dazzlingly detailed, jewel-like oil paintings of Robert Campin, Hieronymus Bosch, the Pieter Brueghels, and many amazing anonymous artists.

6. “Carnival versus Lent” by Pieter Brughel the Younger.

7. The upper story arcade surrounding the Great Hall.

I also happen to have a soft spot for those genres of European art (and architecture) known collectively as “fin-de-siècle” — late 19th to early 20th movements such as Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Secessionism, and the Symbolists (see, eg, last week’s post on the Gustave Moreau Museum).

8. Art Nouveau furniture and decorative arts in the Fin-de-Siecle Museum.

Given that Brussels was a central crossroads for the Art Nouveau movement, you might expect their Fin-de-Siecle Museum to have a great collection — and you would not be wrong.

9. A lone “Burgher of Calais” (Rodin) amongst 19th century paintings.

10. “The Age of Splendors” — Jean Delville (1894).

For me, the Oldmasters Museum is about religious intensity and Flemish precision, while the Fin-de-Siècle Museum is about dreamlike excess and decadent beauty. Both are worth many hours each, and if you are like most people (myself included) who can only take two or three hours in a museum before their brain is full, I recommend setting aside time for two visits here, one session in each museum. (I personally made three visits total, and will eventually happily return for a couple more.)

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11. A painting and sculpture in the Fin-de-Siecle Museum.

Art in Detail

For a detailed look at some of the pieces here I found particularly interesting, check out the Instagram Posts or Substack Notes linked to below (the text is the same in both, but photo counts may differ due to platform restrictions):

“Last Judgement” — southern Netherlands, 15th C: Instagram (7 photos) / Notes (5 photos)

“Lamentation” — Petrus Christus (c1475): Instagram (5 photos) / Notes (1 photo)

“Virgin & Child Among Female Saints” (1475-1500): Instagram (8 photos) / Notes (3 photos)

“The Caresses” — Fernand Khnopff (1896): Instagram (4 photos)

“The Dead Women” — Gustav Adolf Mossa (1908): Instagram (4 photos)