Exhibitions

09.05.2018 > 02.09.2018

These type of posters appeared in Paris between 1870 and 1880. The style immediately becomes popular in Brussels. Many artists try their hand at poster art, from the most famous to the unknown. Seduced by this ephemeral, technically demanding medium, the posters portray the city and its suburbs in vibrant colours. The posters are also used for advertising, heralding the consumer society. A broad range of products are displayed on these posters: telephones, bicycles, cars, biscuits and chocolate, coffee and alcohol as well as circuses and theatres. The image of the bourgeois and liberated woman also represents the desire for luxury and modernity.

11.06.2015 > 27.09.2015

Monique Martin (1928-2000) is a major Belgian artist, a painter and illustrator, as well as the creator of Ernest & Célestine.

This exhibition set out to discover the various facets of her art, with Brussels as a common theme throughout her work. The Belgian capital, where she lived all her life, punctuated her work, whether in her albums for young people (published under the pseudonym of Gabrielle Vincent), in her landscapes or portraits. She lives and breathes Brussels.

This retrospective brought to light the original drawings of Ernest & Célestine, on-the-fly snapshots of the Palace of Justice and the unpublished work “Le petit ange à Bruxelles”, her very first album, published in 1970.

04.07.2013 > 20.04.2014

The 19^th century Gothic Revival building, as we know it today, bears witness to a history that begins in the 13^th century. The building has experienced a turbulent life: it was built, destroyed, renovated, burned down, restored, destroyed again and finally “identically” rebuilt at the end of the 19^th century. In 1936, the Maison du Roi became the first listed civil building in Belgium. In 1998, it was classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Grand-Place.

Using archives, engravings, drawings, paintings, plans, sculptures, photographs and digital reconstructions, this exhibition told the eventful history of this iconic building.

Snapshots 1884-1897 Jacques Carabain

03.12.2011 > 31.12.2011

At the request of the mayor Charles Buls, the painter Jacques Carabain painted 59 watercolours of Brussels. The aim of this project was to immortalise the landscape before major urban planning works. These paintings by an extremely talented artist, kept in the Museum’s collections, are a source of information on places which have, in many cases, witnessed profound changes. Confronted with old iconographic documents from the City Archives, current plans and photos show us the evolution of these sites and life in Brussels from this period to the present day.

300 years of earthenware and porcelain (1650-1950)

19.11.2003 > 30.04.2004

At the end of the 17th century, the first earthenware factory opened in the heart of Brussels, on the initiative of the Mombaers dynasty of entrepreneurs. A century later, earthenware production is replaced by the new production of porcelain. Notwithstanding the economic interest of this industry, a social revolution is sweeping across the country. While the nobility had expensive silver dishes that they used for large banquets, the people had until then eaten from pewter plates or wooden bowls. Consequently, a new industry begins to emerge. It marks the beginning of an artistic tradition at the service of everyday life.

31.10.2001 > 31.12.2004

This exhibition showed the evolution of spaces such as squares, green areas, cemeteries, car parks, etc., which have developed according to the main constituent elements of the city of Brussels: a watercourse, the Senne, commercial activities, places of worship, political centres. Photographs by Marie-Françoise Plissart completed the exhibition and weaved a link between a certain “bucolic” image of old Brussels and the contemporary city.