Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
Antwerp's fine arts museum, reopened in 2022 with a white gallery insert inside its 1890 palace.
The museum, usually known by its Dutch initials KMSKA, holds one of the largest collections of art from the Low Countries, with roughly 8,400 works. Its origins lie in the collection of the Antwerp guild of Saint Luke, later passed to the city academy, and the present building on Leopold de Waelplaats was designed by Jacob Winders and Frans Van Dijk and completed in 1890. The neoclassical block, crowned by bronze chariots, closes the view along several streets in the nineteenth-century Zuid district.
After eleven years of works the museum reopened in September 2022. KAAN Architecten restored the historic enfilades of top-lit halls and inserted a second museum of tall white rooms into four former courtyards, reached by narrow stairs and slots of daylight. The display pairs early Netherlandish painters such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden and Hans Memling with Rubens, Jordaens and Van Dyck, and with modern Belgian art, including the world's largest collection of works by James Ensor.
Highlights
- Largest museum holding of paintings by James Ensor
- Early Netherlandish works by Van Eyck, Memling and Fouquet
- Rubens gallery in the restored historic halls
- White contemporary galleries inserted by KAAN Architecten
