Musee de la Ville de Bruxelles, Brussels

The Musee de la Ville de Bruxelles (Brussels City Museum) is located in Maison du Roi in the Grand Place. It has a nice collection of artifacts from the history of Belgium, up to present day items like the costumes for the famous Manneken Pis statue.

This devotional tableau in the style of Rogier vander Weyden dates from the 1400s. It is an interesting combination of paintings on the doors and bas relief in the middle. The relief depicts events from the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If I had the money, I would commission something like this!

Click to enlarge

A series of tapestries on legendary Roman consul Decius Mus was commissioned on a design by Rubens. One of those tapestries, depicting the solemn funeral of the consul, hangs in this museum. It was woven in the 1600s.

Funeral of Decius Mus (click to enlarge)

The museum also has a large collection of fine practical pottery, including some whimsical dishes for serving fish.

Fine china in Belgium (click to enlarge)

If I had the money, I would not commission these!

Several statues adorned the staircase to the upper floors of the museum, only being slightly scary to the children.

Not so scary standard bearer

Lion with creepy eyes!

Upstairs is a large model of Brussels in the middle ages, when it was a walled city.

Middle-ages Brussels (click to enlarge)

Nearby is a medallion of Leopold, first king of the Belgians.

Leopold

A large hall at the top of museum has many fine paintings, including this one.

Allegory of something?

One section of the upstairs is devoted to the large collection of costumes for Manneken Pis, which we will look at in our next post!