Anon. Brussels from the Hotel de Bellevue

An original early 19th-century watercolour painting Brussels from the Hotel de Bellevue.

An interesting historical view, finely executed in graphite with watercolour wash and pen and ink.

The Hotel de Bellevue, built on the site of the old Palace of Brussels, was long associated with visiting dignitaries. Some of its first distinguished guests were French nobles, including several members of the royal family, fleeing to Brussels after the 1789 revolution. Napoleon Bonaparte dined there and the Duke of Wellington purportedly met there with his general staff a few days before the battle of Waterloo.

In 1830 the Bellevue found itself at the centre of the fighting during the Revolution for Belgian Independence, with the facade facing the Parc de Bruxelles riddled with bullet holes and shrapnel. The Bellevue became a national monument at the end of the fighting.

Later illustrious visitors included Honoré de Balzac, Franz Liszt, King Edward VII of England, Wilhelm I of Germany and Tsar Alexander II of Russia.