The Curtius Museum (Musée Curtius) is a museum of archaeology and decorative arts, located on the bank of the Meuse River in Liège. It was built sometime between 1597 and 1610 as a private mansion for Jean Curtius, industrialist and munitions supplier to the Spanish army. With its alternating layers of red brick and natural stone, and its cross-mullioned windows, the building typifies the regional style known as the Mosan (or Meuse) Renaissance.
After a 50 million euro redevelopment, the museum reopened as the Grand Curtius in 2009, now housing the merged collections of four former museums: the museum of archeology, the museum of weaponry, the museum of decorative arts, and the museum of religious art and Mosan art. Highlights in the collections include treasures of Mosan art such as a twelfth-century gilded reliquary tryptich, formerly in the church of Sainte-Croix, the Evangelarium of Notger, sculptures by Jean Del Cour, and a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte painted by Ingres in 1804: Bonaparte, First Consul.
References:The Château du Lude is one of the many great châteaux of the Loire Valley in France. Le Lude is the most northerly château of the Loire Valley and one of the last important historic castles in France, still inhabited by the same family for the last 260 years. The château is testimony to four centuries of French architecture, as a stronghold transformed into an elegant house during the Renaissance and the 18th century. The monument is located in the valley of Le Loir. Its gardens have evolved throughout the centuries.