The Magritte Museum (; ) is an art museum in the Royal Quarter of

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium, dedicated to the work of the Belgian

surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

artist

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgium, Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature ...

. It is one of the constituent museums of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. The museum is housed in the Hôtel du Lotto, an 18th-century neoclassical building on the Place Royale/Koningsplein, across the street from the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) and not far from the

Royal Palace of Brussels The Royal Palace of Brussels ( ; ; ) is the official palace of the Monarchy of Belgium, King and Queen of the Belgians in the centre of the nation's capital, Brussels. However, it is not used as a royal residence, as the king and his family l ...

. This site is served by

Brussels-Central railway station Brussels-Central railway station (; ) is a railway and metro station in central Brussels, Belgium. It is the second busiest railway station in Belgium and one of three principal railway stations in Brussels, together with Brussels-South and ...

, as well as by the metro stations Parc/Park (on lines 1 and 5) and Trône/Troon (on lines 2 and 6).

History

The Magritte Museum is housed in the Hôtel du Lotto (also known as the Hôtel Altenloh), a five-level ''

hôtel particulier () is the French term for a grand urban mansion, comparable to a Townhouse (Great Britain), British townhouse. Whereas an ordinary (house) was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a ...

'' (townhouse) dating from the late 18th century. This neoclassical building formed part of an architectural complex built after the Palace of Coudenberg burned down in 1731. Over the centuries, successive owners have transformed it into a hotel, a jewellery store and finally a museum. The Place Royale/Koningsplein and its surrounding buildings were a site of fighting during the

Belgian Revolution The Belgian Revolution (, ) was a conflict which led to the secession of the southern provinces (mainly the former Southern Netherlands) from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. The ...

. It was there that the coronation ceremony of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, King of the Belgians, took place on 21 July 1831. The building then became a hotel for travellers for over a century, before being sold to a jeweller at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1951, the façades and

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

es lining the Place Royale were recognised for their architectural and historical interest, and were definitively protected from any modification by a classification order on the Belgian Heritage List. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium moved in in 1962, and the Hôtel du Lotto was transformed into a museum. Extensive renovation work was carried out in the 1980s, and the building's interior was radically transformed. The importance of

's collection and his international renown merited a space dedicated to communicating the artist and his work. In 2007, plans were drawn up for a future Magritte Museum in the Hôtel du Lotto, and work began the following year, with completion scheduled for 2009. Inaugurated on 20 May 2009, the Magritte Museum opened its doors to the public on 2 June 2009, in a building belonging to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts.

Museum

The Magritte Museum displays some 200 original Magritte paintings, drawings and sculptures, including ''The Return'', ''Scheherazade'' and '' The Empire of Light''. This multidisciplinary permanent installation is the biggest Magritte archive anywhere. The works on display come mainly from donations and the bequests of the artist's widow, Georgette Magritte, and from Irène Hamoir Scutenaire (over twenty paintings, twenty gouaches, forty drawings, etc.), who was his primary collector. Additionally, the museum includes Magritte's experiments with photography from 1920 on and the short surrealist films he made from 1956 on.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Jonathan Manes, ''L'implication des nouvelles technologies dans la restauration de bâtiment classé : Le musée Magritte de Bruxelles'' (in French), Éditions universitaires européennes, 2012, 152 p. (ISBN 978-3-8381-8182-0)

External links