An object leaves on a trip to another museum, another undergoes research. Or a special piece is recognised as a Flemish Masterpiece. Or our collection expands.
'The world mirrored. World maps from the Middle Ages to the present day' took you on a discovery through the fascinating history of the Western world view from the Middle Ages to the present day. We received 48,718 visitors.
Except for a dozen or so loans, all the pieces on display in the exhibition come from the MAS collection. The objects have been chosen for what they portray, their significance or their (historical) story.
In 1890, the painter Louis van Engelen depicted a crowd of Belgian emigrants moving across Antwerp’s Nassau Bridge to the district of Het Eilandje towards a ship. The resident population watches them pass by.
What is valuable must be protected. That is the logic of the Flemish Masterpieces Decree. Since the creation of this decree in 2003, just about 1,000 objects and collections have been recognised and protected as masterpieces. Through decree, the government also strengthens public collections by acquiring important masterpieces.
In 2024, we selected a dental collection to perform a valuation on. There was no knowledge within the MAS about the provenance and history of this collection. It was not clear whether these objects had a place within the collection plan.
CLOSED - Migration is about living and working in an unfamiliar place. It’s about long-distance love and growing up in a foreign city, a new home. You discovered the story of 50 years of migration from Morocco and Turkey on the fifth floor of the MAS.
