Collections Development

One of the most important core tasks of musea is not only to maintain and manage collections, but also in procuring the assemblage of them. That this is no sinecure, speaks for itself. The available resources are often insufficient to be able to compete on the commercial art market. Nevertheless, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, the Groeninge Museum in Bruges and Mu.ZEE in Ostend have constructed a formative Ensor collection. Vigilant conservators play a part, (with help from generous donours, associations of friends and the municipal and Flemish governments), to build up their collections. This is not the historical case, however. Only in recent decades important collection parts and works of James Ensor were secured for the public collections in Flanders. You can select how this came about per museum.