Bruges - Groeninge Museum

To the left of No. 12 Dijver an entrance leads from the quay to the Groeninge Museum (Stedelijk Museum voor Schone Kunst) tucked away behind. In addition to its excellent endowment of Old Flemish paintings the museum incorporates a gallery of modern art and a superb collection of views of old Bruges.

The first five rooms of the museum are the ones most likely to claim the visitor's attention however, containing as they do some quite exceptional paintings by Old Flemish masters.

In Room 1 hang two major works by Jan van Eyck: "Madonna and the donor, Canon van der Paele" (1436) and the portrait of Margarete van Eyck, the artist's wife, painted when she was 33 years of age (1439). Both illustrate the extraordinary realism of