Royal Museums for Art and History
The Royal Museums of Art and History (KMKG - MRAH) are a group of museums in Brussels: The Cinquantenaire Museum, the Musical Instruments Museum, the Museums of the Far East and the "Halle Gate". Together, they represent one of the ten Federal Scientific Institutions. They house one of the largest and most diverse art collections in Belgium. These four museums are full of art treasures and objects, from prehistory to the present day and from every continent of the world.
The Cinquantenaire Museum exhibits a broad range of objects from all five continents. Part of the collection covers national archaeology (one of the most important collections in Belgium) and antiquity. Another section covers non-European civilisations from Asia, America (pre-Columbian civilisations and current traditional societies), Oceania (including magnificent objects from Easter Island) and the Islamic world, as well as European industrial art from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century.
The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), on the Mont des Arts, houses one of the biggest collections of musical instruments in the world (over 7,000 instruments).
The Museums of the Far East: the Japanese Tower and Chinese Pavilion (which contain Japanese works of art from the 18th and 19th centuries and Chinese ceramics), as well as the Museum of Japanese Art.
The "Halle Gate", all that now remains of Brussels’ second wall, holds exhibitions on a regular basis, including some on the theme of the city itself.
Aside from the documentation centres (libraries, photographic library, moulding and casting workshop and archives), the KMKG - MRAH has an area named the "Museum for the Blind", a new concept which allows visitors to discover and explore art objects by touch.
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