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Grand' Place, Brussels
From the collection of National Museum of Asian Art (Freer/Sackler). Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
The main square in Brussels, officially named Grote Markt (Big Market), offers a beautiful view beloved by tourists who visit the Belgian capital, as Whistler did in 1887. Unlike Whistler’s London subjects, Grand’ Place captures seventeenth-century houses united behind a monumental façade. Within, craftguilds comprising carpet makers, tanners, millers, cartwrights, sculptors, and stone cutters drove the economic life of Brussels. Whistler also includes a sign reading “Sale de Vent,” indicating a sale room or auction house, to layer the modern business of art atop the historic guildhalls.
National Museum of Asian Art (Freer/Sackler)’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineGrand' Place, Brussels. 1887. James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). National Museum of Asian Art (Freer/Sackler), Gift of Charles Lang Freer. CC0.
