Timeline
1925
Construction of the house in Esseghemstreet 135, comprising three flats.
1930
The Magrittes move back to Brussels after a three-year stay in the Paris suburb. They rent the apartment on the ground floor at 135 Esseghem Street in Jette.
1954
René and Georgette Magritte leave the apartment in May 1954. The couple moves to 207 Lambermont Avenue in Schaerbeek.
1954 – 1993
Three more tenants will rent the apartment on the ground floor of 135 Esseghemstreet.
1967
Death of René Magritte in Mimosas Street in Schaerbeek. He’s buried at the cemetery of Schaerbeek.
1976
André Garitte meets Georgette Magritte in Mimosas Street in Schaerbeek. He will regularly meet her and her friends Louis Scutenaire, Irène Hamoir and collect memories about Magritte and the Belgian group of Surrealists.
1986
Georgette Magritte dies. Their furniture and other belongings are sold at an auction at Sotheby’s and in the Palace of Fine Arts.
1992
Through a recent photograph, André Garitte discovers that the house at 135 Esseghem Street still exists.
1993
Creation of the NGO ‘Musée René Magritte’ and purchase of the painter’s house: the aim is to open a biographical museum and restore the painter’s apartment.
1993 – 1999
After 6 years of renovation, the René Magritte Museum is officially opened, on July 5, 1999. More than 100 original photos and numerous testimonies of the people who visited the house at the time were used to restore the painter’s apartment.
1999
The first René Magritte Museum was officially opened on 5 June 1999.
2024
The René Magritte Museum will celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary