Domain & Royal Museum of Mariemont
View from Mariemont Museum, overlooking the 45 ha domain | Andy Simon © Musée royal de Mariemont
Mariemont’s Museum building is surrounded by the domain’s beautiful nature. On each floor, collections rooms are punctuated by breathing platforms with large bay windows overlooking the greens.
The Mariemont Museum building | Andy Simon © Musée royal de Mariemont
The current Mariemont Museum building was built in 1975 by Belgian architect Roger Bastin in the brutalist architecture style. It incorporates a remaining wing of the former castle of the Museum’s founder, Raoul Warocqué, which suffered an accidental fire in 1960.
The Greek & Roman antiquities section of the Royal Museum of Mariemont | Wojciech Ludwin © European Heritage Label
This collection consists of marble and bronze statues, ceramics, gold and silver work, paintings, and wall frescoes from the various civilizations that emerged simultaneously in the Mediterranean region. Some of the extraordinary pieces include an important ensemble of wall painting frescoes from the Boscoreale Villa near Pompeii, a rare, sculpted marble head of Alexander the Great, and a large bust of Cleopatra, excavated from Alexandria.
Ruins of the castle of the last Habsburg governor, Charles de Lorraine, 18th century | Wojciech Ludwin © European Heritage Label
Mariemont served during almost 250 years as the country residence for the successive governors of the Habsburg Low Countries, including the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. In 1754, Prince Charles of Lorraine built a modern Neoclassical palace upon the foundations of the original castles; a few decades later, however, this new palace was destroyed during the French revolution. Its ruins still stand today. After a consolidation treatment, they will be accessible as an archaeological garden.
Rare books collection | Wojciech Ludwin © European Heritage Label
The rare books collection of Mariemont is housed in a partial restitution of the former library of Raoul Warocqué, the Belgian businessman, collector and philanthropist whose family had purchased the domain after the French revolution, and who started the Mariemont Museum.
Sculpture “La Source” by Jef Lambeaux, 19th century | Wojciech Ludwin © European Heritage Label
La Source, a work by sculptor Jef Lambeaux, is a replica of the statue located at Saint-Gilles Town Hall. It was donated by the artist to Raoul Warocqué, the industrialist, art collector and philanthropist owner of Mariemont, in thanks for his prior purchase of two other original works (also presented in the Mariemont domain) at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris.
The Japonese Bronze Buddha, early 20th century | Andy Simon © Musée royal de Mariemont
The large-sized Japanese bronze Buddha is a copy dating from the early 20th century, erected in 1910–1911 in the Domain at the request of the site’s owner at the time, the industrialist, art collector, and philanthropist Raoul Warocqué. This colossal statue has become an iconic landmark for most visitors to the region.
The Buddha is seated with his legs crossed, his hands forming the gesture of meditation and concentration. Its iconographic style is identical to that of the Great Daibutsu (Kotokuin, Kamakura, 1252)
The Bodhisattva Kannon, bronze sculpture, late 16th century | Wojciech Ludwin © European Heritage Label
Originally thought to be of Japanese origin, the work is now recognised, in the light of recent research, as being of Chinese origin. It was cast during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). This monumental religious sculpture stands 5.5 metres tall, is up to 1.8 metres wide and weighs approximately 2.5 tonnes. It features eleven pairs of arms (the twelfth being missing) as well as twelve faces arranged in four tiers of three. It is a remarkable example of Chinese Buddhist art.
The EHL Site
The Domain & Royal Museum of Mariemont is located in Wallonia, in the French-speaking part of Belgium, in the Hainaut province. At the heart of Europe, its strategic position at the crossroads of major communication routes made Mariemont a site of European history. Founded in the mid-16th century by Mary of Hungary, sister of Emperor Charles V, Mariemont was a centre of power and exchange, serving as princely residence for governors of the former Low Countries. In the 19th century, Mariemont became the setting for the rich collections of European and world cultures assembled by industrialist and philanthropist Raoul Warocqué, who bequeathed all to the Belgian State in 1917. His legacycontinued thanks to Belgian curator Germaine Faider, who structured the new public domain’s museological and scientific mission.
Mariemont is thus a fine example of a former Renaissance estate, turned bourgeois estate in the industrial era, and later a contemporary public domain, forged by visionary European personalities, including women.
The public domain belongs to the Wallonia-Brussels Federation since 1991. The Museum is its official scientific and cultural establishment, overseeing the conservation, study and promotion of an exceptional heritage combining art and nature.
Today, the Domain covers some 45 ha and is recognised as one of Wallonia’s outstanding heritage sites. Visitors find in Mariemont a museum of world cultures, a research institute, remains of Charles de Lorraine’s 18th-century castle, an English-style park with architectural and sculptural works by prominent 19th-century artists, and an arboretum. Each year, the Museum curates a new major temporary exhibition, participates in ex-situ exhibitions, and coordinates events andartistic interventions in the domain. Its cultural mediation team offers year-round visits and educational activities for all, from families, school children to adults.
European Dimension
Mariemont is a place of European history. Key European personalities established the site and major political, artistic and cultural movements intersected there. A seat of power in European geopolitics under Habsburg rule (Spain until 1714 and Austria until 1794), the site retains ruins of the neo-classical palace of Charles of Lorraine, and in its soil, the remains of royal residences from the 16th century. Later, as bourgeois estate of a wealthy coal industry family, the site became the epicentre of the region’s economic, social and political development, and of innovative philanthropic and artistic pursuits.
The Mariemont ‘meta-collection’ is representative of 19th and 20th century European artistic movements, world cultures and great ancient civilisations – from Ancient Rome and the early Middle Ages to decorative arts, sculptures and writings of European artists, and the Western fascination with Ancient Egypt and the Orient. Some Museum’s masterpieces are on par with those of major world museums.
The Mariemont museum, built in 1975 by architect Roger Bastin, illustrates a 20th century European trend of the modernist architecture choice for housing art collections.
Mariemont exemplifies European values of gender equality and support for culture. The site’s destiny was shaped by women and patrons of the arts, from Mary of Hungary in the 16th century who engaged the best Renaissance artists in Europe, Archduchess Isabella in the 17th century, Marie Elisabeth of Austria and Marie Christine of Austria in the 18th century; Raoul Warocqué in the 19th century, to Germaine Faider in the 20th century, who, for 40 years, through WWII, preserved the collections and and steered the Museum’s public mission.
The site is today an inclusive and educational microcosm of European history and the arts. It is also a ‘green lung’: a cultural and natural oasis in the Wallonia region, attracting general audiences, scientists and tourists.
The organization
Mariemont sits in a 45 ha domain, located in the city of Morlanwelz in southern Belgium.
Its mission is threefold:
Scientific research, in the domains pertaining to the mariemont collections.
Heritage promotion, by showcasing collections and developing temporary exhibitions, organising educational activities and training, events and creativity, producing publications, and all related communications services.
Heritage conservation, to maintain and improve the physical condition of the objects in the collections.
Mariemont’s cultural offering extends to the green spaces of the domain, where activities focus on books and literature, the performing arts and artistic creation. Recurring concepts are the slow festival, Explorarium Domaine de Mariemont; FabuLIVRE, a celebration of the arts of the book; and Marie’ART, a trail of ephemeral works based on a Europe-wide call for artistic proposals.
Since 2020, Mariemont embarks each year on European cooperation projects with the academic, cultural and civil society sectors to develop itinerant exhibitions and innovative digital mediation products which reconstruct lost cultural and architectural heritage, for the benefit of all.
The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday (closed December 25 and January 1), from 10:00 to 17:00 (winter) or 18:00 (summer). Access to permanent collections is curently free of charge. All communication support and exhibition labels are trilingual in French, Dutch and English.
The domain is open every day from 10:00 to 19:00 daily and is free of charge.
A café/brasserie operates in the Museum building during Museum opening hours.
The Museum is wheelchair-accessible, as the majority of the domain.