Maagdenhuis

Maagdenhuis stands in Antwerp as a historic museum inside a former girls’ orphanage. Its white stone façade dates from the seventeenth-century expansion and carries a detailed bas-relief. Orphaned girls and their teacher appear among Hermes, Christ as the Good Shepherd, God, and a dove. The courtyard reveals another side, with the former living and working quarters set behind the main building.

The orphanage began around 1552 and remained here until 1882, when the girls moved elsewhere in Antwerp. A former chapel became a museum in 1884, while the building developed into a museum of its own in 1930. Rooms now combine porridge bowls, dresses, embroidered samplers, antique furniture, and documents about orphanage life with paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, and other Antwerp artists. Former kitchens hold the Rubens Gallery and the Sixteenth-century Gallery, while the Chairman’s Hall and Side Corridor preserve further paintings.

The smallest room contains a Fifteenth-century Gallery with a Last Judgement, the Seven Acts of Mercy, and the Seven Deadly Sins. The courtyard holds Wooden Clara, a seventeenth-century statue that gives the historic setting a particularly memorable human detail.