While some drawings were acquired from the 19th century onwards, it was in 1913 that the drawings department experienced a defining moment. In that year the dowager de Grez donated some 4,250 drawings dating from the 16th century to the 19th and covering a number of schools. As the years have passed, this core has been enriched with other acquisitions, as well as donations and legacies, mainly covering Flemish artists. Because the de Grez collection comes from the Netherlands, more than half of the drawings belong to the Dutch school, illustrated by Hendrick Goltzius or Jacques de Gheyn the Younger, and dominated by the figure of Rembrandt (Man Standing with a Voluminous Coat and Broad Hat), the undisputed drawing virtuoso.

The large Flemish group includes works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Prudentia), Frans Floris, Maerten de Vos, Jacob Jordaens (Pomone or The Allegory of Fertility), David Teniers the Younger, etc. Added to that is the world-famous Errera album, which features more than 140 drawings of landscapes from the beginning of the 16th century. The French and Italian schools are represented by Antoine Watteau (Three Studies of a Lady with a Hat), Laurent de la Hyre, Federico Zuccaro, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo and the few hundred sketches produced by Remigio Cantagallina during his stay in the Low Countries in 1612-1613.

The drawings department preserves more than 6,000 works on paper, from the 19th century through to today. There are Belgian works and a number of major names from foreign schools, in particular from France.

For the 19th century, there are the highly accomplished romantic works by Louis Gallait, hundreds of realist sketches, pages from sketchbooks, superb pastels or water colours by Constantin Meunier, major symbolist works by Xavier Mellery, Fernand Khnopff (An abandoned town) and Jean Delville. Finally, there are the remarkable compositions by James Ensor. For the foreign schools, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Jean-Fran�ois Millet, Odilon Redon (Christ) and Vincent Van Gogh (Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer) stand out. Léon Spilliaert occupies an important place in the transition from symbolism to expressionism, after James Ensor .

Works on paper have become increasingly prized by artists throughout the 20th century. The same thing applies to the sculptor George Minne, the painters Constant Permeke and Frits Van den Berghe or to the multi-talented Rik Wouters. Among the representatives from the first generation of abstract artists, there are Joseph Peeters, Paul Joostens and Félix De Boeck. At the same time, Belgian surrealism is represented extensively within the collection by the drawings and gouaches of René Magritte, the collages by E.L.T. Mesens, the large group of works by Armand Simon and the often dreamlike images of Paul Delvaux.

The second generation of abstract artists, working in the second part of the century, is represented in particular by Gaston Bertrand, Jules Lismonde and Jo Delahaut, while the Cobra movement is very much on hand through Christian Dotremont and in particular through a very generous fund of Pierre Alechinsky (Unfolded newspaper). For his part, Henri Michaux illustrates the relationship between literature and gesture. From outside Belgium come the names of Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Mark Tobey, Cy Twombly, David Tremlett and Giuseppe Penone.