The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai has an eclectic collection of paintings from all periods but is especially rich in modern art, having the only two works by Manet exhibited in Belgium.

Edouard Manet ‘Argenteuil’ (1874)

Edouard Manet ‘The Père Lathuilk Restaurant’ (1879)

Henri Fantin-Latour ‘L’etude. Portrait of Sarah Elizabeth Budgett’ (1883)

Georges Seurat ‘Beach at Bas Butin, Honfleur’ (1886)

James Ensor ‘Pierrot and Skeletons’ (c.1905 – 07)

In the ‘Old Masters’ section of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in the Belgian capital of Brussels, whose permanent collection includes an excellent display of early Netherlandish art.

Robert Campin ‘Annunciation’ (c.1420s)

Rogier van der Weyden ‘La Pieta’ (c.1441)

Rogier van der Weyden ‘Portrait of Antoine de Bourgogne’ (c.1460)

Quentin Metsys ‘Madonna Enthroned’ (c.1595)

Hieronymus Bosch ‘Temptation of St. Anthony’ triptych (c.1500 – 05)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder ‘Fall of the Rebel Angels’ (1562)

Paul Gauguin ‘Breton Calvary’ (1889)

James Ensor ‘The Strange Masks’ (1892)

At the Festival des Minimes in Brussels for an excellent Clara Schumann (trio, opus 17) and Fanny Mendelssohn (Trio, opus 11) concert with Trio Yehudi.

Back in Ghent to see the reinstallation of the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts. The museum has a particularly varied collection of paintings from the middle ages to the modern period.

Robert Campin ‘The Man of Sorrows’ (c.1430)

Rogier van der Weyden ‘Virgin with the Carnation’ (c.1480)

Hieronymus Bosch ‘St. Jerome’ (c.1485 – 95)

Hieronymus Bosch ‘Christ Carrying the Cross’ (c.1510 – 16)

Pieter Breughel the Younger ‘Peasant Wedding in a Barn’ (1616)

Peter Paul Rubens ‘St. Francis receiving the Stigmata’ (c.1635)

James Ensor ‘Old Lady with Masks’ (1889)

James Ensor ‘Pierrot and Skeleton in a Yellow Robe’ (1893)

The Ensor collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp has been on a world tour whilst the museum has been closed for renovation. It is fitting that the final exhibition of the collection before it returns to Antwerp is in the artist’s home town of Ostend.

James Ensor ‘The Astonishment of the Mask Wouse’ (1889)

James Ensor ‘Skeletons Fighting over the body of a Hanged Man’ (1891)

James Ensor ‘The Skeleton Painter’ (1896)

St. John’s hospital in Bruges was founded in the mid-twelfth century and contains some of Europe’s oldest surviving hospital buildings. It also contains the Hans Memling museum with a number of triptychs and other works by the German artist who worked in Flanders.

Hans Memling’ Diptych of Our Lady and Maarten van Nieuwenhove’ (1487)

Hans Memling ‘Triptych of Jan Floreins’ (1479)

Hans Memling ‘The Shrine of St. Ursula’ (c.1489)

At the Groeningemuseum in Bruges to see its wonderful collection of Early Netherlandish paintings.

Jan van Eyck ‘Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele’ (1436)

Jan van Eyck ‘Portrait of Margareta van Eyck’ (1439)

Hans Memling ‘Moreel Triptych’ (1484)

Gerard David ‘The Judgement of Cambyses’ (panel 2, 1498)

Hieronymus Bosch ‘The Last Judgement’ (1500 – 05)

Jan Provoost ‘Crucifixion’ (c.1501 – 05)

In the Belgian city of Ghent to see the amazing restoration work on the Ghent altarpiece, van Eyck’s ‘Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’. The restoration has removed all the sixteenth-century over-painting revealing van Eyck’s original colours.

Van Eyck ‘Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’ (completed 1432)

Restoration work being carried out on the main panel

Before and after restoration

At the Palais des Beaux-Arts in the northern French city of Lille to see its permanent collection. It is one of the largest art museums in France and has an excellent collection of paintings and sculpture from antiquity to modern art.

Dirk Bouts ‘The Ascension of the Elect’ (c.1450)

Dirk Bouts ‘The Fall of the Damned’ (c.1450)

Francisco Goya ‘Time of the Old Women’ (c.1808 – 12)

Gustave Courbet ‘After Dinner at Ornans’ (1849)

Edouard Manet ‘Berthe Morisot with a Fan’ (1874)

Fernand Leger ‘Two Women with a Blue Vase’ (1935)