The waiting is over. This Friday 13 June, after extensive preparations, Brussels’ Art & History Museum in the Cinquantenaire Park is proudly opening two new galleries – one dedicated to Belgian Art Nouveau and Art Deco and the other to 19th-century decorative arts.
Covering a combined area of 1,200m², these galleries will showcase exceptional artworks, many displayed for the first time. The highlight is the restored and reassembled winter garden of the Salle Cousin with its superb stained glass windows, wooden panelling and marble fireplace designed by Belgium’s ‘father of Art Nouveau’, Victor Horta (1861-1947).
“This was the only work possible to renovate out of the three Horta buildings destined for destruction,” the museum’s curator Werner Adriaenssens told journalists at the 10 June press visit, with the Maison du Peuple and Maison Aubecq tragically destroyed.
The Art Nouveau section of the gallery is designed to show that Belgium’s contribution is “not just concentrated on Horta”, Adriaenssens continued. As well as the beautiful furniture of Henry van de Velde, whose Bloemenwerf villa in Uccle is often open to the public, other big names include Paul Hankar, Paul Hamesse and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, who contributed a beautiful gold grandfather clock to the collection.
Moving to Art Deco, the museum focuses on artists like Belgium’s Constant Montald and Oscar Van de Voorde, with exquisite jewellery from designer Philippe Wolfers. He was a key part of the 1925 Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, where one highlight, recently rediscovered in the museum’s plaster workshop and now on display, is Pieter Braecke’s imposing sculpture ‘The Decorative Art’.
Other notable designers and firms in the period, that were as much about industrialisation and progress as luxury, “a marriage of reason,” Adriaenssens said, include Charles Catteau (exquisite vases from the Boch factories, La Louvière), Val-Saint-Lambert glassware and De Coene Brothers wooden furniture.
While Belgium is famous for Art Nouveau and Art Deco, its 19th-century prowess is less well-known. But the 19th-century gallery with a wealth of treasures from all aspects of daily life, from lighting to leisure, exudes Belgian gems including Brussels Hard porcelain, Vonêche Crystal luxury glassware and a beautiful Brussels/Havana wedding dress.
This gallery also excels in its depiction of changing times. Children were no longer ‘mini adults’, and benefited from charming toys, games and easier-to-wear clothes. The 19th century also saw the development of electric lighting, telephony, transport (do not miss the Grand Bi/Penny Farthing), photography, fashion – inspired by magazines like ‘Au Bon Marché’ from the famous Paris store – and the art of dining.
Just one fascinating piece of information, describing the beautiful free-standing iron bath with feet, was that in the 19th century bathing more than once a week was considered “excessive”, and that it was safest to wash with your (white, voluminous) shirt on.
In short, a trip to these stunning galleries, in the words of one early review of the museum which first opened in 1889 as the Cinquantenaire Museum, is “the essential addition to a visit to Belgium and Brussels”, or take advice from one of the charming 20th Belgian Railways travel posters (1913), proclaiming: “In Brussels, first go to the Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire”.
