Monument to the Dynasty

Monument to the Dynasty

Monument à la Dynastie (French) Monument voor de Dynastie (Dutch)
50°53′26″N 4°21′12″E / 50.89056°N 4.35333°E / 50.89056; 4.35333
Location	Place de la Dynastie / Vorstenhuisplein 1000 City of Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Designer	Louis De Curte [nl]
Beginning date	1878 (1878)
Completion date	1881 (1881)
Dedicated to	King Leopold I

The Monument to the Dynasty (French: Monument à la Dynastie; Dutch: Monument voor de Dynastie) is a monument erected in Brussels, Belgium, in memory of King Leopold I, first King of the Belgians. The monument is located in Laeken Park, on the Place de la Dynastie/Vorstenhuisplein, on top of a 50-metre-high (160 ft) hill. It completes the monumental axis, which starts from the portal of the Royal Palace of Laeken, and which leads to the monument after crossing the Avenue du Parc Royal/Koninklijk Parklaan via the Avenue de la Dynastie/Vorstenhuislaan.^[1]

History

The monument was designed by the architect

The monument was renovated in 2001 on the occasion of the Belgian presidency of the European Union. It remains closed to the public for fear of vandalism.

• 
  Inauguration of the Monument to the Dynasty in Laeken Park, 21 July 1880, etching by Armand Heins from L'Illustration nationale^[3]
• 
  The Monument to the Dynasty in 1880, etching by Armand Heins from L'Illustration nationale^[2]
• 
  Statue of King Leopold I in 1880, etching by Joseph Smeeton and Auguste Tilly from L'Illustration nationale

Iconography

Leopold I

In the centre of a nine-bay gallery, each symbolising one of the nine original Belgian Provinces, is a sculpture of King Leopold I by Guillaume Geefs,^[1] who also made the statue of Leopold I on the Congress Column. On this substructure rests an almost 50-metre-high (160 ft) spire, topped with a golden crown. Above the statues of the nine Belgian Provinces, a Leo Belgicus holds the coat of arms of the province in question. At the rear of the monument, on the north side, a staircase gives access to a walk above the peristyle. This walk passes under the flying buttresses decorated with small gargoyles.

Nine provinces

The statue of the king is protected by a canopy in the shape of a perfect

• 
  Statue of King Leopold I by Guillaume Geefs
• 
  Province of Liège (left) and Province of Limburg (right) by Adolphe Fassin [fr] and Antoine van Rasbourg [nl

  ]
• 
  Province of Brabant by Charles van der Stappen

See also

• Sculpture in Brussels
• History of Brussels
• Culture of Belgium
• Belgium in the long nineteenth century

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Goedleven, Edgard (1988). Les Serres royales de Laeken (in French). Brussels: Duculot, Inbel.
  ISBN 978-2-8011-0799-7
  .

• Media related to Monument to the Dynasty at Wikimedia Commons