Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

We recommend visiting this museum with the combined ticket that includes the Magritte Museum. That said, we want to make it clear: this is a wonderful artistic and cultural experience you simply can’t miss if you’re visiting the capital. It not only holds incredibly beautiful works of art, but it’s also a peaceful, stunning, and super photogenic place. Don’t miss it!

A great gallery, notably the Old Masters section. They have made classical art accessible to all by keeping the cost affordable, well done to them. So much quality art, inside a lovely venue, helpful staff and great facilities. Well worth a visit.

Holy cow! Loads of world-class Belgian art in a climate-controlled atmosphere. Well worth the visit. The Caravaggio exhibit is worth the price of admission. In Bruges, the museum pass is worth it if you have time to visit all the great museums and climb the tower. But allow two days.

If you are an art fan, this is the right place for you! I loved it and would definitely recommend spending around 2 hours in there to indulge into each painting and get to see all the rooms. If you are a surrealist fan as well, I suggest buying a ticket for both Magritte museum and this museum for a better price (the 2 museums are next to each other)

Among one of the great classic Western art museums of the world. Period. The audio commentary was well worth the few extra dollars. I spent 6+ hours in a blink of an eye.

Really good collection of old masters and Dutch painters. Well worth a visit just to see a number of Bruegel's paintings and a copy of an altar piece by Hieronymus Bosch - however there is plenty of other things to see. Worth buying ticket that includes Magritte museum as that is well worth a visit.

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium is a must visit for art lovers. The building is wonderful and the art within is spectacular. It is definitely busy on weekend days; and it makes sense because there is so much greatness here people can’t help but to gather. The Brussels city pass will get you in. You can buy the pass in 24, 48, or 72 hour increments. Make sure not to activate the card until you’re ready to go to multiple attractions. They also have options to add public transportation and hop on hop off tour transportation. I found that public transit is cheap enough to just buy on my own to get where I need to go. If you happen to be into surrealism, they have a first rate Magritte exhibit that you can add to your ticket if you’re just buying tickets for this museum. Take advantage of the free coat check, they also have paid lockers if that’s more your speed, or if you need to tuck valuables away while you visit.

We went on a Saturday, turned up at 11am and joined a shirt queue (moving very fast) and bought tickets (on the self service machine) to fine art museum (old masters museum) and Magritte museum for 15euro for both. We did one museum then went out for much and did the second museum later afternoon (same day). I am really glad we didn’t get the Brussels card for the day for 39euro. We can’t possibly do more than these two museums in one day with children.

My mother and I visited this museum while we were in Brussels a few months ago and it was another great museum in Brussels. They have a TON of paintings and sculptures. They have some great stuff here and I really liked the space in between each piece of art, as odd as that sounds, it let you spread out a bit when looking at a painting. There are many, huge rooms on two floors and there was something around every corner. This place was really cool and I would definitely visit here again.

This is one of Belgium's most famous fine arts museum. The buying tickets process is a bit complicated as there are options to buy one exhibit or multiple exhibits. Either way, the ticket prices aren't hugely expensive and each exhibit is quite good so even if you buy the wrong exhibit, you'll have a good time. The museum itself is huge and I really appreciate them having electronic kiosks here and there to tell the stories of the paintings. There was one kiosk explaining how a painting of a family portrait got chopped off into three bits and the process of then identifying these pieces as a singular unit. I thought the story was quite incredibly as you not only learn about the art but also the way the museum conducts its business. While I was walking, I noticed that there was an English led tour going on and decided to join in. Not sure if this is for additional moneys, but honestly I would highly HIGHLY recommend. This is the only reason why the museum would get a 5-stars. The explainer was absolutely amazing, I definitely think that this was the best art museum tour I have ever been on. The guide didn't talk about many paintings, maybe 10-15 during the 1 hour tour, but every single painting she did talk about had such an interesting backstory and you're not learning just about the history but also about how the museum curates its work. You will definitely be able to get a deeper sense of appreciation for this place. Overall, highly recommend visiting, especially if you're deciding on going on a tour. The surrounding areas are also very nice too and would highly recommend checking out the surrounding architectures after the gallery visit.

Tons of artwork. There's no way to see everything in one visit. It had Dutch Masters, an exhibit on turn of the century art (like 1890-1909), as well as some huge contemporary exhibits (not "modern art"). The building itself is fun to look at inside. Spent a good chunk of the day there after Musée Magritte, which is connected to it.

Massive art museum at the top of the Mont les Arts. Not free, but inexpensive and the extra charge for the audio guide is worth it. You can buy entry to all the collections or just one. I spent three hours here and toured the main collection, the old masters and the Magritte. I simply didn't have the energy to also visit the Fin-de-Siècle as well. Neatly curated with a large focus on Bruegels going on. The "Bruegels Box" was a neat display with a great detailed look at some of his more famous works. Moving pictures and video really helps to see what's going on in these works and the captioning/narration was very helpful. Rembrandt, Rubens and others were in a decent space with captions in French, Dutch and English. Despite it being a school day and there being a lot of school kids touring the museum, it was possible to tune them out and enjoy the art. Pictures encouraged, as long as no flash is used.

Seriously, where can you go wrong with a modern art gallery. Actually, this is a little more than just an art gallery - it is actually a collection of art galleries all housed in the same building, the catch is that you have to pay for a ticket to enter each of them separately, though you do get a discount for multiple galleries. Anyway, the three galleries include one containing the works of the old masters, one containing impressionist and modern works, and one containing contemporary art. Needless to say I skipped the contemporary art gallery. The collection is pretty impressive, or at least the old masters are - there wasn't a huge number of impressionist works, and the more modern pieces really didn't impress me all that much, however they did have some pretty awesome Surat paintings. Still, it is certainly a place worth visiting.

Recently,I spent a day and a half assiduously studying15th,16th,17th,and 18th Century Art at this huge wonderful art museum.I have confined my review to its encyclopedic collection of paintings from the Renaissance Period in the Netherlands.I saw outstanding paintings by the giants of Netherlandish Renaissance Art such as;Master of Flemalle,Rogier Vander Weyden,Hieronymous Bosch,Petrus Christus, Hans Memling,Adriiean Isenbrant,Quentin Metsys,Gerard David,Albrecht Bouts,Bernard Orley,Jan Mostaert,and Ambrosius Benson.Most of the Netherlandish Paintings that I studied had devotional subject matter.A few of the memorable paintings that I relished included Hans Memling's"Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian",Hieronymous Bosch's"Calvary",Bernard Orley's"Haneton Triptych",Jan Massys"Lot And His Daughters",Rogier Vander Weyden's"Pieta",Jan Vermeyan's"Triptych of Micault Family,Resurrection",Quentin Metsys'"Saint Anne Altarpiece",Albrecht Bouts'"Jesus At House of Pharisee Simon",Albrecht Bouts'"Last Supper",,and Jan Gossaert's"Venus and Cupid".Being back in Brussels after leaving Brussels and the Old Master's Art Museum in 1989 was a special privilege.

We saw the Old Masters and I am seriously conflicted in my review. The bad - A few rooms were closed, and some paintings were missing - replaced with a white sheet of paper showing a photo of what you should be looking at. Lame. Some paintings were also really bizarre - like seeing one that had a moustached nun and people riding a flying fish. The good - The latter half of exhibit improved greatly, with Gael, Van Dyck, Van Schendel, and Van der Willigan (amongst others) that showed what most would consider the classic masters. These were amazing to see - their use of light, capturing peoples' real likenesses, etc.

I've enjoyed this museum quite a bit. It's really three museums located in the same area - the Oldmasters, the Fin de Siècle, and Magritte museum. Each museum has a few excellent pieces among it's collections and takes some time to go through. The fact that it's all located together makes the artwork quite accessible for viewing.

Many small museums in 1 ! You will have the choice for 8€ to visit 6 museums at the same place either, Old Masters Museum, Modern Museum, Fin-de-Siècle Museum, Magritte Museum, Meunier Museum & Wiertz Museum. I did choose the Fin-de-Siècle Museum, nice little museum but I feel there was not so much to see as famous paintings or sculptures as you can see in other famous museums in the World but for the size of Brussels, I think it's good, a wonderful museum in terms of architecture. I did enjoy to see the main lobby of the Museum. It was opened to the public in 1803.

An easy choice for an afternoon in Brussels, the combination of The Old Masters Museum, Modern Museum, and Magritte Museum is a veritable steal for the cost of admission and although at times clustered the variety and expanse of the collection is something that needs to be seen.

Just to be clear, I'm reviewing this museum excluding the Magritte Museum (which is excellent). The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels was such a let-down after the Magritte Museum. The former was a modern, well-curated space. The rest of the collection needs some serious love. One of the biggest issues was that 60-70% of it was closed for renovation, so maybe this space will get better eventually. The ART: They do have a fairly good Brugel collection...this is their strongest aspect by far. They also have some Reubens and Van Dyck, but those collections don't match their Dutch counterparts. The SPACE: Well, it's an old building. That's not to say old buildings are bad, as I love looking at art in the Louvre or the Musee D'Orsay; however, this space has a feeling that time forgot it. It's dark, dingy, dusty. The artwork is not well-lit. The staff are a bit unfriendly. OVERALL, I was pretty disappointed with this museum. If I had one day in Brussels again, I would have gone to the Magritte Museum, and saved the time and money I spent on this museum on drinking delicious Belgian beer instead!