Well presented, if not exactly well organized, the Musée d'Art Ancien is saved from confusion by its colour-coded zones - blue, brown, orange and red. It's a large collection and it's best to start a visit with the Flemish primitives .

Rogier van der Weyden and Dieric Bouts

Rooms 11 and 12 hold several paintings by Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464), the official city painter to Brussels in the middle of the fifteenth century. When it came to portraiture his favourite technique was to highlight the features of his...
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Hans Memling and the Master of the Legends of St Lucy and St Barbara

Room 14 has some fine portraits by Hans Memling (1430-94) as well as his softly hued Martyrdom of St Sebastian . Legend asserts that Sebastian was an officer in Diocletian's bodyguard until his Christian faith was discovered, at which...
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School of Hieronymus Bosch

Moving on, Room 17 boasts a copy of the Hieronymus Bosch Temptations of St Anthony that's in the Museu Nacional in Lisbon. No one is quite sure who painted this triptych - it may or may not have been one of Bosch's apprentices -...
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Cranach, Gerard David, Matsys and Bernard van Orley

Next door, Room 18 holds works by Martin Luther's friend, the Bavarian artist Lucas Crunch (1472-1553), whose Adam and Eve presents a stylized, Renaissance view of the Garden of Eden with an earnest-looking Adam on the other side...
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Bruegel

The museum's collection of works by the Bruegel family, notably Pieter the Elder (1527-69), is focused on Room 31 . Although he is often regarded as the finest Netherlandish painter of the sixteenth century, little is known of...
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Rubens and his contemporaries

Apprenticed in Antwerp, Rubens (1577-1640) spent eight years in Italy studying the Renaissance masters before returning home, where he quickly completed a stunning series of paintings for Antwerp Cathedral. His fame spread far and wide and for...
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