The Rubens House RE-OPENS SUMMER 2024 (Closed Temporarily)

Though situated in its exact spot and location, this is in actual fact not the home of master Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), but a beautifully imagined construct of what his house might have been like had it survived. There's period furniture (though not his), original prints of the house, a recreation of his studio and some major paintings by him and, among others, contemporary greats Anthony van Dyck and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Sections of the original house and gardens remain, but this is not to demean the tickling, inspired and atmospheric fakery that dominates this great Antwerp attraction. A must. And in November 2016 at Sotheby's in London, a private buyer scooped up a work by Tintoretto (THE ANGEL FORETELLING SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA OF HER MARTYRDOM) from David Bowie's collection and then offered it to the Rubenshuis (a favourite of Bowie, apparently) as a long-term loan from the spring of 2017. In January 2023 the house closed for renovation, re-opening in summer 2024, and with a new garden of more than 1,700 plants and showing colour every day of the year.