The Petit Sablon garden

In front of you is perhaps the most original garden in Brussels: a small open-air museum of the city’s history, designed to be read like a book.

1A tribute to the trades

The architect Henri Beyaert designed it, and it was inaugurated on 20 July 1890. Look at the railings: they are supported by 48 stone columns, each topped by a bronze statuette representing one of the old trades of Brussels. There are tailors, brewers, carpenters, upholsterers… Each figure carries the tools of its craft, and spotting them is a little game in itself.

2The Counts of Egmont and Horne

In the centre, the fountain shows two noblemen in an embrace: the Counts of Egmont and Horne, beheaded on the Grand-Place in 1568 on the orders of the Duke of Alba. The group, by the sculptor Charles-Auguste Fraikin, first stood in front of the Maison du Roi, and in 1879 the city council decided to move it here.

Around them, ten marble statues represent sixteenth-century figures such as the cartographer Gerardus Mercator and the botanist Rembert Dodoens.

Behind them rises the Egmont Palace, the family’s former residence, now used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for official receptions. And opposite, across the street, begins the Sablon’s world of antique dealers and chocolate shops.

3What to look for

• The 48 statuettes of the trades on the railings.
• The two counts, embracing in the face of death.
• The marble statues: look among them for Mercator, the cartographer.