Bruges Museum Guide: Gruuthuse Reopens, Flemish Art Treasures

Bruges, once the chosen city of the Dukes of Burgundy, became a major cultural hub attracting artists like Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling. The city's museum network remains vibrant. The Gruuthuse Museum, named after 15th-century businessman and patron Lodewijk van Gruuthuse, reopened in May after five years of renovation, featuring a new wing with Flemish grandeur and collections of tapestries, ceramics, musical instruments, lace, and paintings. The courtyard was transformed into a welcoming hall. The Groeninge Museum houses masterpieces from Flemish Primitives to contemporary art, including Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Canon van der Paele and Memling's Moreel Triptych. Nearby, the Memling Museum in Sint-Janshospitaal, Europe's oldest hospital, displays Memling's works like the Diptych of Maarten van Nieuwenhove (1487), Portrait of a Young Woman (1480), and the Reliquary of Saint Ursula (1489), along with devotional objects and medical instruments used until 1864. In Leuven, the Collegiate Church of St. Peter on Grote Markt, built over a thousand years ago, exemplifies late Gothic Flemish architecture and houses masterpieces by Dieric Bouts, including The Last Supper. The church's ambulatory became a museum in 1980, part of M Museum since 2009, and underwent restoration in 2018. Paintings were temporarily moved to the nave. New technologies will provide a mixed reality experience to explore the history of the site and its artworks.