The baroque garden
The pavilion and flowers of Rubens' era — beautifully restored.
CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ricardalovesmonuments — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ricardalovesmonuments — CC BY-SA 4.0 · FrDr — CC BY-SA 4.0
Antwerp is full of him: the cathedral (four major masterpieces), St James's Church (his tomb with his painting above it), St Paul's Church, the KMSKA (the huge Rubens hall), and St Charles Borromeo's Church whose façade he designed. The Rubens House remains the garden and the experience until reopening — check the official site.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
The Rubens House is the palace Peter Paul Rubens built for himself in 1610 on returning from Italy as Europe's most famous painter: an Italian-style house-and-studio with an inner courtyard, a baroque portico and a Renaissance garden, where he lived and worked with his pupils (Van Dyck among them) and produced hundreds of paintings for Europe's courts. Faithfully rebuilt in the 1940s and full of his works and art collection. An important note: the house itself has been closed for a major restoration since 2023 and is expected to reopen around 2027. What is open: the beautifully restored baroque garden (free) with its pavilion and the flowers of Rubens' era, and the "Rubens Experience" in the new adjoining library building (2024) — an exhibition on his life and work plus a research library — so today's visit is a garden and exhibition, not the house. In the city centre on the Wapper near the Meir — for the Rubens lover: see his paintings first in the cathedral and St James's Church, and check the house's reopening date.
The pavilion and flowers of Rubens' era — beautifully restored.
The Italianate entrance Rubens designed himself.
His life and work in a new exhibition and library.
Wapper 9-11, 2000 Antwerp