The Paleis op de Meir, which during its history has been owned by Napoleon, the Dutch authorities and the Belgian royal family, has reopened. The old royal palace is located at the heart of the Meir shopping district in Antwerp.
The weekend of 8 – 9 May saw the grand reopening of the palace which was originally designed by Jan-Peter van Baurscheit in 1745 for Johan-Alexander van Susteren, an Antwerp-based merchant who had made his fortune with the Oostendse Compagnie. The designs for the Paleis op de Meir were based on the French, Vienese and Northern Dutch models. Napoleon purchased the building, including its contents, in 1811-1812. At the time, Antwerp was an important military port in the French Empire and Napoleon intended to spend a lot of time there, so much so that he had Pierre Fontaine redesign the building as his imperial headquarters. However, in 1815, Belgium became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the palace passed into the hands of William I.
It was not until 1996 that the palace's restoration project was begun. Delays in completing the palace inventories and protracted negotiations with the federal government over the return of furniture and objets d'art meant that it was only in May 2010 that the restoration was completed and the palace could once again reopen to the public.
Images of the palace interiors can be found here, here, here and here.
Click here for the palace website (external link in Flemish).