Discover Benelux | Best Museums | Belgium
Salle Apamée.
Time travel through Brussels and beyond TEXT: ANNA VILLELEGER | PHOTOS: ROYAL MUSEUMS OF ART AND HISTORY
Comprising the Cinquantenaire Museum, the Musical Instruments Museum, Halle Gate and the Museums of the Far East, Brussels’ prestigious Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) transport visitors back in time and across the continents. Get ready for a beautiful voyage of discovery. 2017 got off to a flying start for the Cinquantenaire Museum, with its Ukiyo-e exhibition attracting 70,000 visitors. The exhibition showcased the museum’s impressive collections of Japanese prints, which is known for being one of the finest in the world. “Our collection is known worldwide for its beautiful quality. The colours are very well preserved and we have some prints that are unique in the world,” begins museum director Alexandra De Poorter, who has been working at RMAH for more than 30 years. 30 | Issue 40 | April 2017
“We don’t have the prints on display all the time, so people don’t often have the chance to see them. We were very proud to be able to show them off, but they cannot be shown for too long to protect them against the light.” The works, which depict Japanese courtesans, samurai, Mount Fuji and other iconic elements of Japanese culMusical Instruments Museum (MIM).
ture, have now been put back into storage, probably for another 25 or 30 years. The Cinquantenaire Museum is one of the biggest museums in Belgium, showcasing a plethora of artefacts dating from the prehistoric times, not to mention a vast collection of non-European art. “We deMusical Instruments Museum (MIM).