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Museum: Mon 2-6pm & Sun 1-6pm; ?7.50. Garden: daily 2-6.30pm; ?2.50 . From square de Fre follow rue Roberts Jones until you reach avenue Leo Errera. Here, at no. 41, is the Musee David ET Alice van Buuren , a superb little gallery housed in a glorious Art Deco building. The museum was once the home of Dutch banker David van Buuren and his wife Alice, who bought the property in 1928 and between them created a house that would serve as a live-in museum for their collection of furniture, carpets and art. From 1928 to 1970, their home became a global salon of sorts, with great names like Satie, Magritte, Chanel, Ben Gurion and Lalique passing through. During World War II, David (who was Jewish) and Alice were forced to leave their home for five long years, but on their return - much to their surprise - the house and the works of art within it remained totally intact. The house became a museum in 1975, on the death of Alice van Buuren. The fantastic Art Deco interior was created by a team of Dutch, Belgian and French master craftsmen, with the Cubist carpets the work of Gildding and the majority of the woodwork done by Dominique. The collection of art itself is incredibly diverse, spanning five centuries and including Flemish and Italian masters, as well as twentieth-century artists such as Signac, Van Dongen, Foujita, M. Ernst and G. Desmet. Works by van de Woestyne and James Ensor, still lifes by Fantin-Latour, several landscapes by the sixteenth-century painter Joachim Patenier, and sketches by van Gogh also decorate the walls. One of the highlights is a version of The Fall of Icarus by Bruegel the Elder on wood, a work David acquired shortly before his death in 1955. The picturesque, maze-like garden outside, designed by Belgian landscape architect Rene Pechere, contains many rare species of rose, as well as 300 yew trees.
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