A must for any art-lover, this collection of six museums come together to make a one-stop destination for anyone interested in either classical or contemporary art. Located around the Mont des Arts near the Royal Palace and Brussels Park, three of the museums are opposite St Jacobs’s church at Place Royale.
There are six important art collections across the six museums waiting to be discovered and together, they feature over 20,000 works including paintings, sculpture and drawing. Visitors interested in ancient art should make a beeline for the upper floors of the complex, which are home to the Ancient Art Museum of Brussels. At the Musée Oldmasters Museum, you will find significant works from famous Flemish artists. Pieces by Rubens and Bruegel draw big crowds as the museum is known to have the definitive collection of Flemish art in Europe. The Modern Museum focuses on contemporary art and is spread over 8 floors that are underground. Here you will find a display of comic strips, a cherished art form in Belgium, as well as art from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
There are also three smaller museums that display the work of three influential Belgian artists: Constantin Muenier, Antoine Wiertz and Rene Magritte. The Magritte Museum, which opened in 2009, is at the main site, but the Mueiner and Wiertz collections are housed several kilometres from the main building.
The main buildings of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are located just off Place Royale in downtown Brussels. They can be reached by car or metro. The museums are closed on 1st and 2nd January, 1st May, 1st November and December 1st, 11th and 25th. There is a fee for admission to each or you can buy one pass which allows entry to all 6 museums.
