The Goeningemuseum was built in 1929-30 on land belonging to the former Eeckhout Abbey. The district in which it stands has been called 'Groeninge' (because of its greenery) since the thirteenth century. The museum was built with the intention of centralizing the city's collection of paintings and above all of providing an appropriate setting for the world-famous 'Flemish Primitives.' The municipal collection was split in 1898 on the foundation of the Museum of Modern Art at the former Jesuit school on Verwersdijk. The pre-eighteenth-century Old Masters were kept at the Academy until more suitable accommodation could be found. The new building was constructed nearly half a century later.

The important fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century collection has developed over the years into an impressive ensemble. However, the Museum always intended that it should include contemporary art. Today's collection offers a compact survey of fine arts in the former Southern Netherlands and modern Belgium from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the Bruges school before the Romantic era.

You can find more information at the museum's home page (external link). The museum provides a 360°-virtual tour, starting from this page.

Recommended viewing from the collection:

• The Madonna with Canon van der Paele by Jan van Eyck
• The Death of the Virgin by Hugo van der Goes
• St Nicholas Altarpiece by the Master of the Saint Lucy Legend
• The Last Judgment by Pieter Pourbus

The Web Gallery of Art contains 137 images of paintings exhibited in the Groeninge Museum.