The Museum has an outstanding collection of baroque sculpture, and for true connoisseurs, this constitutes a major attraction. The collection includes a unique group of terracotta projects made by numerous artists of the 17th and 18th centuries, born and trained in the former Southern Low Countries. Their models belong mainly to the late baroque period, which is distinguished by forms that are often theatrical, in which the play of the light emphasises the pictorial effect. These clay figurines show an unusual vitality. Some of them are the work of major artists, including Artus Quellinus the Elder (Saint Peter), Lucas Faydherbe (Jupiter Hurling Lightning) and Jan Peter van Baurscheit the Elder (The Rape of Proserpine), as well as Laurent Delvaux and Gabriel Grupello. Among Flemish artists who have left the country, the pupil of Michiel van der Voort, Michael Rysbrack (John Willett), merits special mention. He conducted his career in London and his work had a profound influence on English sculpture in the 18th century.

Neo-classical statuary so powerfully inspired by classical Antiquity was dominated in our part of the world by Gilles-Lambert Godecharle from the end of the 18th century (Jeanne Catherine Godecharle). His younger colleagues, Mathieu Kessels and Henri-Joseph Rutxhiel, distinguished themselves respectively in Rome and Paris where for the Rome Prize in 1811, Jean-Louis Van Geel was measured up against Rude. The latter was exiled to Brussels from 1815 to 1827.

Belgian sculpture only took romanticism up in earnest after the revolution of 1830. Guillaume Geefs released himself from his academic endeavours and turned resolutely to what was real. Attitudes, clothes and subjects were routinely borrowed. For his part, his brother Joseph created one of the most disturbing works of the period (The Genius of Evil). The subjects inspired by national history, much appreciated by the romantics were the inspiration for open-air statues in particular. It was not until Wiertz, that tormented genius, that marble gained any dynamism.

After the middle of the century, and under the impulse of the romantics, sculptors became increasingly attracted by nature and everyday subjects. This awakening was favoured by the Italian Renaissance which charmed our sculptors when they were staying in Italy. This movement reached its zenith in the social realism dominated from a sculpture point of view by Constantin Meunier from 1884 (The puddler at rest).

The final quarter of the 19th century saw an extraordinary increase in sculpture in Belgium, boosted by public commissions. These orders attracted Auguste Rodin to Brussels, who stayed there from 1871 to 1877. Among the artists who stand out, the most noable are Charles Van der Stappen, Paul De Vigne, Thomas Vinçotte, Juliens Dillens, Victor Rousseau and Jef Lambeaux. The last of these liked to treat rather voluptuous subjects in a Baroque style (The mad song). Symbolism only affected most sculptures in a superficial and decorative way.

George Minne was inspired at an early stage by an expressive primitivism strongly influenced by the Symbolists (Pain or Mother crying for her two children). He admired Rodin, several of whose works are exhibited in the Museum (Jean d'Aire or Man with a key). The influence of Rodin also affected Rik Wouters whose talent also developed early on.

From Rik Wouters (Domestic Cares), to more current creations by Bernd Lohaus or Didier Vermeiren, Belgian sculpture is widely represented in the Museum's collections. An expressionist current flows through the works of Oscar Jespers, Henri Puvrez and Constant Permeke, then there is the animism of Charles Leplae and George Grard. Willy Anthoons, André Willequet, Félix Roulin, Jacques Moeschal take very different paths through abstract art in the 1950s and 1960s, while at the same time there are equally different and original creative artists such as Roel d'Haese, Vic Gentils or Pol Bury, one of the masters of kinetic art (19 balls on 3 curved levels in steel). On the international front, there are a number of major figures: Ossip Zadkine, Henri Laurens, Hans Arp, Germaine Richier, Etienne-Martin, César, Arman and Christian Boltanski for France, Henry Moore, Richard Long and Tony Cragg for Britain, Anselm Kiefer and Ulrich Rückriem for Germany, Marino Marini, Emilio Greco, Arnoldo Pomodoro and Giovanni Anselmo for Italy, Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, George Segal (The Hustle: The Four-Hand Pass), Don Judd and Carl André for the U.S.A.

The Garden of sculptures, open to the public since 1991, lines the west façade of the Museum of Ancient Art, along the rue de la Régence via which it can be reached. It is open during the summer, every day from 6h00 to 20h00 and during the winter (from 1 November to 1 March) from 8h00 to 18h00. Visitors can admire The River of Aristide Maillol, placed in the centre of an ornamental lake. In addition to this major work, other sculptures produced by artists such as Emilio Greco, Bernhard Heiliger, Dolf Ledel and Paul Hanrez are also on display there.