Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. There are six museums connected with the Royal Museum, which contains over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and paintings, which date from the early 15th century to the present. The museum has an extensive collection of Flemish paintings.

A Virtual Tour of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

• “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder
• “The Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David

Highlights of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

• “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder
  • “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Brueghel, the Elder, was long thought to be painted by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder. However, following recent technical examinations, it is now regarded as an excellent early copy by an unknown artist of Bruegel’s lost original. In Greek mythology, Icarus who succeeded in flying, with wings made by his father, using feathers and beeswax. Unfortunately, Icarus ignored his father’s warnings, and he flew too close to the sun, melting the wax, and he fell into the sea and drowned. His legs can be seen in the water at the bottom right.
• “The Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David
  • “The Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David depicts the murdered French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat. David’s painting shows the radical journalist at the moment of his death in his bath. Marat was one of the leaders of a key political group during the French Revolution, the radical faction which ascendant in French politics during the “Reign of Terror,” which it led. Marat suffered from a skin condition that caused him to spend much of his time in his bathtub, where he would often complete his work. Charlotte Corday, who murdered him, was from an opposing political fraction and a political enemy of Marat, who blamed him for the mass killings during the “September Massacre.