Napoleon's visit to Antwerp in 1803 was a high point for the city on the Scheldt. Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's wife, ordered a painting to immortalise the entry. This is a preliminary sketch for that.
Antwerp, a metropolis on the river. That's how you know the city today. In the MAS you'll discover that this has been true for a long time. A collection of 500,000 pieces offers you a refreshing look at the city and its contact with other cultures.
The Boulevard spirals upwards through nine floors like a glass spiral. It treats you to a magnificent view of the city, getting higher and higher, changing constantly. The rooftop panorama offers a 360-degree view of the city, the harbor, and the world.
For the exhibition 'Postcolonial?' at the House of European History in Brussels, the MAS is lending an artefact from Mayan culture. It is an object from the collection of Paul & Dora Janssen-Arts.
The exhibition “Colonialisme. Une Suisse impliquée” is on view at the Château de Prangins (National Museum of Switzerland) through October 11, 2026. For this exhibition, the MAS loaned a cane (made in Kalimantan) and a European-made pistol.
FREE ENTRANCE | From October 25, 2025, dance is the starting point in the Visible Storage for delving into the MAS collection. Eight people from dance communities in Antwerp rummaged through the depots together with the curators.
The MAS collection consists of more than 500,000 objects about art, cultural traditions and history of the city and port of Antwerp. But also of Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Oceania.
Are you planning a visit to the MAS? Then go through some practical information first. Ticket prices? Opening hours? How to get there? Accessibility? Food and beverages? You'll find it here!
This ‘helmet’ is indispensable in illustrating the history of distillation in the Low Countries. In various 16th and 17th-century engravings and paintings, you can see how vapours were cooled down and converted into liquids in a helmet like this. In Belgium, we do not know a second one like this.
Mention of heritage in Antwerp immediately puts us in mind of the cathedral or a painting by Rubens. But the Reuzenstoet (Giants’ Parade) or an ancient tree are also part of our heritage, and the same is true of everything we have built up over the centuries in our society.
