The Musée des Beaux-Arts (Museum of Fine Arts) houses the painting and sculpture collection of the Belgian city of Tournai. The collection of the Belgian painter, patron and art collector Henri van Cutsem (1839-1904) forms the core of the Musée des Beaux-Arts.
The 700 works of art, all of which are on display in rooms with natural skylights, include paintings from early Netherlandish painting through to 20th century artists. The museum owns a Madonna and Child by Rogier van der Weyden, who was born in Tournai, and also displays all of the artist's works as full-size reproductions in an educational exhibition. Other old master paintings in the museum include a landscape with three people by Jan Brueghel the Elder, the Bird Trap by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, the portrait of Barthelemy Alatruye and the portrait of Marie de Pacy by the Master of Flémalle, the portrait of the Duke of Bouillon by Charles Lebrun, a Madonna and Child by Amboise Francken, two flower still lifes by Jan van Kessel and works by Abel Grimmer, Joris van Son and Helmont van Mathieu. The creators of two paintings attributed to Jacob Jordaens and Hieronymus Bosch are unclear.
Musée des Beaux-Arts Tournai © Sailko
The collection of paintings from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century is particularly extensive. Among the masterpieces from the van Cutsem collection are two paintings by Edouard Manet. In addition to Beim Père Lathuille, outdoors, his painting Argenteuil, exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1875, can also be seen in the museum. The museum also has a view of Cap Martin by Claude Monet, Les Bas-Butin, Honfleur by Georges Seurat, First Communion and The Sleeping Shepherd by Jules Bastien-Lepage and a portrait of Madamoiselle Budgett by Henri Fantin-Latour alongside two flower still lifes.
Edouard Manet, Argenteuil, 1875
Belgian painting is represented in the museum by Franz Courtens, Guillaume Van Strydonck, Alfred de Knyff, Theodore Verstraete, Louis Gallait, Hippolyte Boulenger, Charles Degroux and Henri de Braekeleer. The better-known artists in this section include Fernand Khnopff, whose portrait of a lady entitled Rosen can be seen in the museum. The museum is showing The Bath by Théo van Rysselberghe and an early work by James Ensor entitled Duck Pond.
