Musée des Beaux-Arts Tournai

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai, Belgium, is an art museum.

This museum was created at the beginning of the 20th century after Henri Van Cutsem, a Belgian art collector, offered his collection to the city of Tournai in 1905. The collection contained important works of important 19th century French painters like Manet, Monet, Seurat and others.

The Belgian Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta started planning a new building that would contain the Van Cutsem donation and other holdings already owned by the city of Tournai. The First World War intervened and the construction was delayed. Horta abandoned the first designs made in a typical Art Nouveau style. The building that finally opened its doors 1928 is executed in a more classical and linear style typically for the work of Horta in the post-war period (cf. Palais des Beaux-Arts / Paleis voor Schone Kunsten in Brussels).

[edit] External links

• Museum information