Page 156 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Belgium & Luxembourg

154  BEL GIUM AND L UXEMBOURG REGION B Y REGION

Antwerp: Rubenshuis
Located on Wapper Square, Rubenshuis was Pieter Paul
Rubens’s home and studio for the last 29 years of his life,
from 1611 to 1640. The city bought the premises just
before World War II, but by then the house was little
more than a ruin, and what can be seen today is the
result of careful restora tion. It is divided into two sections.
To the left of the entrance are the narrow rooms of the
artist’s living quarters, equipped with period furniture.
Behind this is the Kunstkamer, or art gallery, where Façade of Rubenshuis
Rubens exhibited both his own and other artists’ work, The older Flemish part of the house
sits to the left of the later section,
and entertained his friends and patrons such as the whose elegant early-Baroque exterior
Archduke Albert and Infanta Isabella. To the right of was designed by Rubens himself.
the entrance lies the main studio, a spacious salon
where Rubens created – and showed – his works. A
signposted route guides visitors through the house.

Pavilion and Garden
Rubens was greatly influ enced by Italian
Renaissance architects such as Alberti. In
the 1620s, he added an Italian Baroque
pavilion to his house, charmingly set in
a small, formally laid-out garden.

KEY
1 Entrance passage
. Rubens’s Studio 2 The Living Room is a cosy sitting
It is estimated that Rubens produced some 2,500 paintings room with a pretty tiled floor and
in this large, high-ceilinged room. In the Renaissance view of Wapper Square.
manner, Rubens designed the work, which was usually 3 Chequered mosaic tiled floor
completed by a team of other artists employed in his studio.
For hotels and restaurants see p268 and pp286–7

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