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Arabic Culture and Ottoman Splendour

During Antwerp's Golden Age

01.12.2001 - 03.03.2002 | The Officina Plantiniana and Antwerp played a crucial role in the cultural interchange between the Arab and the Western world. The exhibition gave an outline of that interchange. It was also part of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of both the Plantin-Moretus Museum and the Association of Antwerp Bibliophiles.

The Frans Dille Prize

The Frans Dille Prize is a private initiative in close collaboration with the Museum Plantin-Moretus. The Prize promotes the graphic arts in recognition of the Antwerp artist and personality Frans Dille (1909-1999).

Graphic Rooms

The Free Graphics workshop of the RHoK (Etterbeek Academy of Fine Arts) joined forces with the Museum Plantin-Moretus for this project. The students first built a modular scale model of the entire Museum. They then examined a space of their choice and produced a graphical interpretation of it, which was then incorporated into the model.

Abraham Ortelius - Rockox house

Under the spell of Classical Antiquity

24.04.2015 - 16.08.2015 | This exhibition ran at Rockox House. It mainly featured items from the Plantin-Moretus Museum collection. Ortelius published the first world atlas in 1570. From 1579, Plantin printed this atlas, with Ortelius as the publisher.

The City Park

There are many traces of the Moretus family near the City Park. This district was built around 1870, and the city bought a lot of land from the Moretus-Della Faille family there. The current police station, Plantin en Moretuslei, the Plantin metro station: they are all linked to the family.

Hercules and the Nemean lion

Rubens had a soft spot for the ancient hero Hercules. In this drawing, he bends forward slightly as he crushes the head of the Nemean Lion. In his attempt to find the ideal posture, Rubens gave Hercules three right and two left legs.

Holiday workshops

School holidays? You know the place to go: the Museum Plantin-Moretus offers numerous workshops for your children aged 5 to 12 years. They are all about being creative using the basic printing techniques – etching, printing, stamping and bookbinding to name but a few. Your children will learn in a fun way and give their creativity free rein.

The shop

With its counter and cabinets, this shop is still fully furnished for the sale of books – right down to the money scales for checking silver and gold coins. The bookshop was moved here from Kammenstraat by Balthasar I Moretus in 1639.

Hendrik van den Keere (1540-1580), Grande musicque

Printing was also a revolutionary development in the world of music. The Ghent type founder Hendrik van den Keere supplied Christophe Plantin with 44 sets of punches and matrices. Plantin used the ‘Grande Musicque’ type set to print choral music.

Portraits by Rubens

You will find an extensive collection of paintings in the Museum Plantin-Moretus. Nearly half of these are portraits of the family. The painter? Peter Paul Rubens!