Archives des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique / Archief van de Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België

  • Archives of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
  • AMRBAB-AKMSKB
  • ARMFAB

Address

Administrative address
Rue du Musée 9 / Museumstraat 9
Brussels
Brussels Capital
1000
Belgium

Phone

+32 2 508 33 98

History

The Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique / Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) was created by virtue of the consular decree of 14 Fructidor year IX, better known as the Chaptal decree. The museum opened to the public two years later and Guillaume Bosschaert was its first curator. The museum, owned by the city of Brussels since 1811, was ceded to the newly created Belgian state according to the agreement of 31 December 1842. In 1907 the first ‘society of friends’ was created: les Amis des Musées royaux de l’État à Bruxelles, counting among its members many dignitaries and personalities of the Jewish financial and industrial elite, including baron Léon Cassel, Léon Lambert, Franz Philippson and Jules Philippson. In 1919, after the First World War, the Museum was directed by chief curator Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert. Today, the collections of the MRBAB include over 20000 works of art. Today, the MRBAB comprises the Old Masters Museum, the Modern Museum, the Wiertz Museum, Meunier Museum, Magritte Museum and the Fin-de-Siècle Museum.

https://www.fine-arts-museum.be/en/the-institution/historical-background

For a more detailed history (until 2002), see Van Kalck, Michèle (ed.), Les Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique : Deux siècles d’histoire, 2 vols., Brussels, Éditions Racine, 2003.

Mandates/Sources of Authority

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are one of the federal scientific institutions reporting to the minister in charge of research and science policy.

Science Policy, as the programming federal public service (SPP), coordinates the various federal science policies, oversees federal scientific institutions and develops various research activities in all areas of federal competence, including art and culture.

www.belspo.be

Records Management and Collecting Policies

The Archives of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (ARMFAB) are tasked with conserving, communicating and promoting the use of the institution's historical archives (documents produced or received by the institution in and through the exercise of its functions and activities), as well as a small number of archive funds of organisations or private individuals historically linked to the institution.

Archival and Other Holdings

The Archives of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (ARMFAB) are tasked with conserving, communicating and promoting the use of the institution's historical archives (documents produced or received by the institution in and through the exercise of its functions and activities), as well as a small number of archive funds of organisations or private individuals historically linked to the institution.

In all, the Archives hold just over 600 linear metres of documentary material.

The earliest records date from the late 18th century and are slightly pre-date the consular decree of 14 Fructidor IX (the 'Chaptal Decree') creating the Museum of Brussels.

The Archives do not contain:

  • the Museum's working files (the individual documentary files, one per artwork): they are part of the institution’s archives but are located in the conservation departments

  • publications, with rare exceptions.

Finding Aids, Guides, and Publication

The Guide to the ARMFAB funds and collections (soon available on its site in a pdf) provides summaries of the different funds and collections, mentioning for each of them, at a minimum, the precise name of the fund/collection, the extreme dates (period covered), the size in running metres, a brief description of the archives producer, a brief description of the content, any earlier research tools (records-diaries of correspondence, files, lists) or modern research tools (inventories), and information on communicability.

https://historicalarchives.fine-arts-museum.be/

This content does not yet exist in English. In the meantime, you can still browse or search through the archival fonds and collections. Please note, however, that the language of the documents is mostly French and that the inventories are also written in French only.

Publications: see here

Opening Times

On Tuesdays and Thursdays: 10:00-12:30 and 13:30-16:00, by appointment only and subject to availability of seats in the reading room.

Accessibility

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium do everything possible to ensure that their premises and collections are accessible for all visitors, including people with disabilities.

Accessible entrances can be found here.

All galleries of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are accessible for visitors with reduced mobility. The Made to Measure team and the museum staff are here to help you get around the Museums. Do not hesitate to contact us!

Wheelchairs, both manual and electric, are allowed in the museums. However, for the safety of the works, the visitors and the staff, it is not allowed to use mobile scooters. It is possible to borrow a free wheelchair on site, if you do not have a wheelchair or if your wheelchair (mobile scooter) is not allowed in the rooms.

The two main sanitary blocks are accessible to visitors with reduced mobility (Old Masters Museum, ground floor / Magritte Museum, level -2).

Certified guide dogs are welcome!

Research Services

Portal of the Historical Archives of the RMFAB: archive guide and access to the digitalized archives.

The photographic service of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium manages thousands of high quality images that are available for professionals, researchers and individuals. Photography plays a fundamental role in the management of a museum collection. The digital images are produced to international standards, in order to ensure a high level of quality, and reproductions that are as faithful as possible to the original works. These images are available for different types of commercial or research use, or for private individuals.

ABRITIUS [Fine Arts BRussels InTernet & Intranet USers] database is the online database of the collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. This catalogue contains paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, printed material, installations, tapestries and decorative art objects from the collections of the Musée Old Masters Museum, the Musée Modern Museum, the Musée Magritte Museum, the Musée Wiertz Museum, the Musée Meunier Museum and the Musée Fin-de-Siècle Museum (with the exception of the Gillion Crowet collection on deposit, which is included in the LOANA / LOANed Artworks) base. More than 10,000 illustrated notices are currently available for consultation via the museum website or FABRITIUS. The FABRITIUS interface offers, however, additional information, including the location of the works in museum exhibition rooms.

ARCHIBALD ARCHive of Belgian Arts Letters and Documents is the database of the Archives of Contemporary Art in Belgium.

The ARCHIBALD database contains documents from the funds and collections of the Archives of Contemporary Art in Belgium (BCAA). The scientific research project "The XX and the Libre Esthetique (1884-1914). Critical edition and digitization of the Octave Maus fund", made it possible to launch the database in 2009 by placing online nearly 2,000 letters addressed to art critic and writer Octave Maus. After this, priority was given to the archives related to René Magritte, a major figure of painting in Belgium, and then to other significant archives and to more recent acquisitions of the AACB. The digitization of the archives is still in progress. For now the descriptive data are available only in French and Dutch. In addition, only a limited number of images (low resolution) are available.

Inventories (available in situ)

Public Areas

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are not just collections. They also offer a specialist bookshop, two restaurants and the possibility to book meeting rooms for your events.

https://www.fine-arts-museum.be/en/visit/at-the-museums

Sources

  • Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium website last consulted on 06/10/2022

  • Pierre-Alain Tallier (dir.), Gertjan Desmet & Pascale Falek-Alhadeff, Sources pour l'histoire des populations juives et du judaïsme en Belgique/Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Joden en het Jodendom in België, 19de-21ste eeuw, Brussel, ARA-AGR/Avant-Propos, 2016, 1,328 p.

  • Yerusha European Jewish Archives Portal website last consulted on 06/10/2022

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