97 musées de la Communauté flamande et de Bruxelles ouvrent ainsi leurs portes de manière originale du samedi 18 au dimanche 26 février inclus, avec une approche spécialement destinée à un public d’enfants (6-9 ans). Si l’initiative est néerlandophone (www.krokuskriebels.be), le Musée de la Banque nationale la propose dans les deux langues du pays afin d’inciter un maximum de familles à rentrer dans l’univers mystérieux de l’argent.

Les enfants pourront se mettre à la place du gouverneur de la BNB et prendre les commandes de la Banque, mais aussi faire montre de leurs talents de dessinateurs pour réaliser de nouvelles pièces de monnaie tout en jouant au détective à travers les salles du musée… L’entrée et la participation à l’évènement sont gratuits. Alors, pourquoi hésiter?

At the end of the Ancien Régime, France was in the grips of a major financial crisis. The people were starving, the public deficit was enormous and the kingdom was virtually bankrupt. The Revolution did not help. It was in this dire economic context that the assignat was created. In 1789, the French King Louis XVI convened the Estates-General with a view to finding a way out of the crisis. This meeting of the French estates of the realm produced a National Constituent Assembly, a body tasked with finding a way to relieve the public debt burden. This Assembly decided to abolish the Ancien Régime’s tax system, regarded as the people’s oppressor. At the time, there were many different taxes levied very unequally, leading to general unrest and eventually revolt.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, then the Bishop of Autun and later diplomat and politician, put forward a suggestion: why not nationalise church property? This extensive stock of real estate mainly consisted of buildings and farm properties with a total value estimated at 2 or 3 billion livres. So, the National Assembly decided to auction off the property seized from the church. The idea was quite simple: people wanting to buy this property now deemed to belong to the nation could only do so in exchange for assignats that they had to acquire beforehand. The assignats were similar to bonds issued by the Treasury. The value of this paper currency is mortgaged on or “assignée” (ascribed) to these national domains. This arrangement enabled money to come straight into the State’s coffers thanks to loans from private individuals particuliers earning interest at 5% and without having to wait for the actual sale of the property.

From January 1792, assignats were issued in either sols or sous (1 livre = 20 sous).

Production of assignats started in December 1789. An Extraordinary Chest (Caisse de l’extraordinaire) was established and given the responsibility of issuing this paper money and collecting the proceeds from selling property confiscated from the church. An initial print run of assignats was worth 400 million livres. The first assignats were in livres and in large denominations too (200, 300 and 1000 livres), which made them difficult to use for other transactions. Once the assignats came back into the hands of the State, it was imperative for them to be destroyed. From their inception, this bank notes were the subject of much debate in the National Assembly. Some deputies were worried that too many assignats were being put into circulation in relation to the value of the national property. This anxiety was heightened following the bankruptcy of Law…

From 1795 onwards, assignats were denominated in francs (a new monetary unit which replaced the livre)

On 17 April 1790, the government, which was still short of cash, declared an emergency exchange rate for the assignat, and the interest was cut from 5% to 3% before being scrapped altogether. This is how it became genuine paper money. On top of that, the State was no longer destroying the assignats that it was getting back. Jacques Necker, Minister of Finance and fervent opponent of the paper money, disapproved of these decisions and handed in his resignation in September. But the Assembly and the government were not giving up and started printing even more assignats. In a bid to shore up the assignat, the government took action such as obliging merchants to accept this paper currency and prohibiting any conversion of the assignat into precious metal. Another problem with this paper money is that it is easy to forge. England, one of France’s main enemies at the time, would forge counterfeit notes with a view to confusing the French, who were soon confronted with false assignats coming in left, right and centre. The whole system quickly started spiralling out of control and the French State had to issue even more notes to make up for the heavy costs of the war that began in 1792 against Austria. This war marked the beginning of a long series of international crises between revolutionary France and the rest of Europe.

With such an abundance of assignats, France was faced with a hyperinflation crisis. Between 1790 and 1793 alone, the assignat lost 60% of its value. In the space of seven years, the Revolution multiplied the country’s money supply by twenty. Faced with this proliferation of assignats, the church property put at the nation’s disposal could no longer guarantee their value and this led to further depreciation of these banknotes. In 1796, the total amount of assignats had reached 45 billion livres, while the estimated worth of the clergy property was only 2 to 3 billion. These banknotes had become worthless in a inflationary context. In February 1796, having lost all their value, the assignats along with their banknote plates were burned symbolically in the Place Vendôme by the Directoire which replaced them with a new note called the mandat territorial. This suffered the same fate as the assignats but its depreciation was much faster. One year later, it disappeared too and the coin of the realm made its comeback.

The assignat was supposed to wipe out the public debt, but on the contrary, it only made the financial crisis worse. The paper currency was not a flop for everyone, though. It not only enabled France to finance the 1792 war effort, but it also offered French peasants a chance to acquire farmland that they would never have been able to obtain otherwise, thanks to the depreciating paper money and the possibility to spread out payment over time.

LAURIE DE MARÉ
MUSEUM GUIDE

Bibliography:

• Florin AFTALION, L’économie de la Révolution française, Quadrige/Presses Universitaires de France, 1996.
• Jean LAFAURIE, Les assignats et les papiers-monnaies émis par l’Etat au XVIIIe siècle, Le Léopard d’Or, Paris, 1981.
• Jean MORINI-COMBY, Les assignats: révolution et inflation, Paris: Nouvelle librairie nationale, 1925.
• Revue “NUMISMATIQUE & change”: Le billet: une collection passionnante à la portée de tous, Seiten 37 bis 43.

In the National Bank’s museum there are two old banknotes: paper inscribed with black letters and numbers on a simple white background. Made by the Imprimerie Royale, watermarked Billet de Banque.

Banknote of 10 livres tournois of 1719 in the museum.

However, the story behind this banknote contrasts with its simplicity: it is a fascinating, surprisingly topical story which also shows that people are not very quick to learn from earlier mistakes.

This month’s object concerns Law’s banknotes.

John Law was a Scot, born in Edinburgh in 1671, son of a goldsmith who was also involved in banking, not unusual in those days. After completing his studies, Law moved to London.

Law at the pinnacle of his power as Controleur Général des Finances in 1720.

He was evidently a good-looking man, sporty, eloquent, a “dandy” who was attractive to the ladies. He aspired to a wealthy lifestyle, but because he could not afford it he started gambling. And he did it with panache : he had a very good memory, and thanks to his exceptional talent for figures and mathematics he made a lot of money.

However, on 6 April 1694 his life took a dramatic turn.  He killed his opponent in a duel ; he was sentenced to death (duels were prohibited) but managed to escape from prison two days before his execution and fled to the continent. For the next ten years he travelled around Europe : the Netherlands, Italy, France and Scotland, hard to trace because, certainly at first, he kept a “low profile” so as not to be arrested again. He continued to make good money out of gambling and built up a circle of acquaintances who would later be useful to him (including the French Regent, Philippe d’Orléans). He also became increasingly interested in banking : in the Netherlands he studied the operation of the Amsterdam Exchange Bank and the United Dutch East India Company (VOC).
The two things worked together : bankers accepted shares as collateral for loans, and conversely, it was possible to borrow in order to buy new shares : an interaction between the stock market and lenders, a new sort of economy that captivated Law.

With these new ideas, Law devised a system based on the use of paper money which could even restore a state’s public finances. He was convinced that credit was necessary for an economy to work well : if a trader had 100 000 livres and could obtain credit equal to ten times that figure, that was bound to be good for the country’s prosperity. An economy that only uses silver and gold as collateral is trapped and can only stagnate.

This led him to present to the Scottish Parliament his Proposal for supplying the nation with money by a paper credit, which also formed the basis for his book Money and trade considered. This was Law’s most important work in which he used new terms such as inflation, money supply, velocity and the relationship between money and labour. His ideas on taxation were actually revolutionary : everyone had to contribute, including the clergy and the aristocracy. Law’s works are still studied and analysed today. They show that he was ahead of his time.

But the proposal was rejected, and in the end the French Regent was the only person prepared to try out the system, albeit with some initial misgivings.  The reason was obvious. After the lengthy reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV, the State coffers were completely empty and France had a huge mountain of debt.

Law began by setting up a public bank which issued paper money against deposits of gold and silver coins, denominated in ecus which represented a fixed weight of silver. In the preceding years, the government had changed the nominal value of silver and gold about twenty times, so everybody welcomed a fixed price. Thanks to this strict regulation, the Banque Générale (1716) was an immediate success and people gained confidence in paper money.

Law then proposed to the French government that a number of existing businesses should be merged under the name Compagnie d’Occident, later also known as the Mississippi Company (1717).
This super-sized company’s operations encompassed vast areas of America (comprising roughly 8 states which at that time belonged to France) and acquired some important monopolies : in the tobacco trade, exclusive trading rights in Louisiana, the Mississippi, China, East India and South America. Later it also acquired the right to mint royal coins, and to act as a tax collector.

All these privileges led people to believe that the Compagnie would make huge profits, and with the expectation of an annual dividend of 40 % several share issues were needed to meet the public demand. In addition, Law conducted an aggressive publicity campaign which used all kinds of facts, half-truths and flagrant lies to show that immense wealth was there for the taking in the overseas territories.

The number of people buying shares rocketed, subscription lists could not be produced in time, and that in turn had a psychological effect on new buyers, driving up their number. From early morning to late at night, the rue Quincampoix (where the Compagnie had its headquarters) was teeming with investors keen to try their luck. Some of them rented rooms at crazy rates to be able to keep a close eye on the share prices. The people in charge had to take special measures to ensure that business was conducted in a reasonably orderly fashion.

The preferred method of paying for shares in the company comprised billets d’état, government bills issued by Louis XIV, which were worth only one-third of their face value but were taken at their full value for the purpose of paying up the capital. As a result, the government bills were bought up on a massive scale for conversion into shares. The securities were then transferred to the State treasury at 4 % interest, which was to be used to finance the overseas trade and generate a profit.

So what Law actually did was to use the Compagnie to persuade the holders to convert their government securities into shares. Ultimately, the Compagnie would then become the State’s sole creditor.
With the Regent’s consent, the Banque Générale became a Banque Royale (1718), a State bank where loans could be obtained against the collateral of shares, after which the money could be reinvested in new shares. The bank’s capital therefore consisted partly of shares. From then on, the Mississippi Company and the Banque Royale became in effect a single company, and the public also saw it that way.

The bank continued to issue paper money (thenceforward in livres tournois) : the volume was initially determined by the Regent, but increased steadily. Special incentive bonuses were offered to holders of government securities to persuade them to exchange them for banknotes, which could then be used to buy lucrative shares in the Compagnie. The Banque Royale became a discount bank and a bank of issue, a merchant bank and a government bank.

And as the finishing touch, Law tried to persuade the Regent to allow the Compagnie to buy up the whole of the French State debt (the English copied this move in 1720 with the South Sea Company, followed by the South Sea Bubble), something which had never been done before.

Meanwhile, the speculation fever raged on, and the rue Quincampoix was thronged with people buying shares. The issue price was 500 livres : by the end of August 1719 the price was  5 000 livres and by December it was up to 10 000 livres.

Princes, dukes, everyone who was anyone, tried to buy as many shares as possible, even by selling off their land, jewels, whatever they had. The word millionaire probably originates from that period. But the poor were also able to become rich within a few days, by speculation or cunning.

For Law, his appointment as France’s Trésorier Général des Finances was the absolute pinnacle. But it did not last long.

The end came quickly. Throughout France, inflation increased alarmingly, owing to the surfeit of banknotes which the Banque Royale had placed into the economy. Prices doubled within two years, and reflected the volume of banknotes (which also doubled in two years). The stock of money (banknotes and shares) was four times greater than in the days when only gold and silver coins were in circulation.
Some people feared that the paper money would be devalued, and changed it back into metal money. Law responded by prohibiting people from holding more than 500 livres in cash, and by making bank paper into legal tender. He even ordered house-to-house searches to check up. Citizens were now only too well aware that they could never ask for more than this amount in cash from the Banque Royale, and that naturally undermined confidence in the paper money.

Law always intended that metal money should eventually be withdrawn from circulation altogether, but owing to this 500 livre limit he achieved the exact opposite : people no longer trusted paper money.
The huge volume of shares now also posed a threat to his system. The return of a number of destitute colonists from America telling totally different stories rather than tales of mountains of gold, and the realisation that the colonial trade did not really amount to much, changed the public’s opinion of the Compagnie.

Panic could no longer be avoided, the Banque Royale had to close its doors, the share price collapsed, and dramatic scenes took place in the rue Quincampoix.  In the frantic crowds, a number of people died. It was said that « you can die of hunger with 100 million in paper money in your pocket. »
All Law’s attempts to reduce the money supply and buy up shares in order to drive up the share price were unsuccessful, and only led to him being dismissed as the Finance Minister. With the Regent’s help, he managed to evade the angry crowds and flee to Brussels.

Numerous pamphlets, satirical cartoons and engravings depict the bursting of the bubble, the best known being « The great scene of folly ».
Law went travelling again to various countries, and actually received some new offers for applying his system, but he ended up in Venice where he died in poverty. However, he always believed that he was right, and if the Regent had not died young he would most likely have been recalled to France.

It had always been his intention to make France richer and more prosperous, but owing to various mistakes and the opposition of a few major players who had too much to lose in Law’s new economic world, everything went totally wrong.

Caricature after the bubble had burst.

It was to be a further seventy years before France risked another paper money venture…

ANN VANDORPE

Bibliography

• Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid, gedrukt tot waarschouwinge voor de nakomelingen, 1720.
• James Breck PERKINS, France under the Regency with a review of the administration of Louis XIV, 1892.
• Frans DE VOGHEL, Financiers d’autrefois, 1988.
• Lars TVEDE, Business Cycles, 2001.
• Andrew DICKSON White ph.d., Fiat Money Inflation in France,2004.
• Niall FERGUSON, The ascent of money, 2008.

The first of these coins, which were minted back in 1778, shows Maria, daughter of José I, alongside her uncle and husband, Pedro. They were married in 1760, when Maria was 26 years old and Pedro 43. They came to the throne in 1777, and although legislative acts were signed in both their names, Maria was the one considered to be the country’s real leader, with Pedro having to make do with the title of king consort under the name Pedro III.

The second coin dates back to 1787 and shows Queen Maria alone wearing her widow’s veil. Her husband Pedro III had just died the year before. Two years later, they also lost two of their children, including the crown prince José who succumbed to smallpox. Maria, whose extreme piety occasionally bordered on superstition, had actually refused to have him vaccinated against the disease. Her confessor and prime minister also died around the same time. 

The last coin, which was struck in 1789, depicts Maria with a finely made headdress decorated with pearls, and, as on the previous coin, the legible text around the edge retranscribes the sovereign’s titles: “Maria I, by the grace of God, Queen of Portugal and the Algarves”. The letter “R” appears alongside the date the coin was struck, evidence that the coin was made by the Rio de Janeiro Mint. This last coin bears witness to the third phase of her reign when the queen fell victim to dementia. The successive deaths of so many people from her entourage deeply affected her already fragile disposition, and the troubles caused by the French Revolution, during which her cousin Marie-Antoinette was sent to the guillotine, only served to make her mental state worse. Suffering from insomnia, panic attacks and hallucinations, she was no longer capable of ruling, and it was her son, João, who took over the role of the country’s Regent from 1792. This is why she was better known as “Maria the Mad” in Brazil, whereas the Portuguese put more stress on her extreme devoutness by giving her the nickname “Maria the Pious”.

But the monarch’s worries did not stop there. From the beginning of the 19th century, Portugal found itself in a delicate position, torn between taking sides with France or Great Britain, the two powers vying for dominance of the European political scene. The choice was extremely difficult: on the one hand, Napoleon was racking up military victories to such a point that many people found it preferable to become his ally rather than an enemy, while on the other hand, Great Britain had long since been a major trading partner and breaking off commercial ties would no doubt trigger a serious economic crisis. In 1806, Napoleon set up a continental blockade in a bid to isolate Great Britain, and any nation trading with it would be declared France’s enemy, with the dire consequence of seeing its territory invaded by the French armies. And that’s precisely what happened in 1807; Maréchal Junot of France was on the point of invading Lisbon. So, the royal family was forced to flee the country and Brazil was the obvious choice as country of exile. The Royal Court set off on 29 September 1807 and, on 7 March 1808, berthed in Rio de Janeiro, which then de facto became the new capital of the Portuguese Kingdom.

Brazil was to draw many advantages from the arrival of the Court. Magnificent buildings were constructed for the royal family, in return for which some traders obtained highly lucrative contracts. Furthermore, Prince Regent João adopted measures designed to open up Brazil’s commercial activities. Before that, any goods coming from or destined for Brazil had in fact systematically transited through Portugal. From then on, because Portugal was occupied by Napoleon’s troops (who were to be driven out in 1811), this exclusive relationship was broken and Brazilian ports were opened up to commercial allies. Other decisions followed in rapid succession: the transfer of the Kingdom’s highest jurisdictions and the Royal Library, the establishment of the Royal Printing Works (which enabled a press corps to develop) and numerous academies (medecine, science, the arts, etc.). Around the year 1810, João also encouraged colonisation by setting up small Catholic colonies of farmers with a view to extending civilisation on Brazilian soil. And this would not be without consequence for the Indians living on these lands, many of whom were massacred in droves.

In 1815, the Congress of Vienna reached a decision on the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte following his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. In a bid to gain more clout in the European political balance, João decided to re-christen his kingdom, which from then on became known as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Queen Maria finally died in 1816, at the ripe old age of 82, and Prince Regent João was crowned King under the title of João VI. The increasingly important role given to Brazil after the Portuguese Court was established there helped its gradual emancipation and, through it, a sense of patriotism emerged, leading later to the political divorce between Brazil and Portugal, and finally to Brazil’s independence in 1822. The reign of Maria I and the regency years of her son João were therefore decisive moments in the history of Brazil as an independent nation.

Charlotte VANTIEGHEM
Museum Guide

Bibliography

• BIRMINGHAM David, A concise History of Portugal, 2003, p.103.
• ENDERS Armelle, Nouvelle histoire du Brésil, 2008, pp.97-103.
• LEDUC-GRIMALDI Mathilde, “Focus on Brazilian gold: a 500-year quest” in Of gold and feathers, Exchange and value systems in Brazil, exhibition catalogue, 2011, pp.66-77 and 131-132.
• LORBLANCHÈS Jean-Claude, Les soldats de Napoléon en Espagne et au Portugal, 1807-1814, 2007, pp.22-376.

This autumn, culture vultures and fans of Brussels by Night can stay out late and visit the city’s museums every Thursday evening. The National Bank of Belgium’s Museum is taking part in the scheme once again! This is an ideal opportunity to (re)discover the Museum’s collection with friends and family in a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere.

Come on a guided tour around the Museum’s top exhibits and then test your knowledge on the wheel of fortune! Success guaranteed… Alongside the vast collection, this year you can also pay a visit to the prestigious temporary exhibition bring held as part of the Europalia.Brasil festival; your guide will take you into a universe of Gold and… feathers!

To round off your visit, you will be offered a drink too. Owing to limited capacity, you are advised to book early. Entrance is free of charge. You can find the full programme for the late-night openings on www.brusselsmuseumsnocturnes.be.

Where?

Museum of the National Bank of Belgium<
Rue du Bois sauvage/Wildewoudstraat 10
1000 Brussels

When?

Thursday 24 November
from 17:00 to 22:00

Free admission

Bookings

Tel: 02 221 22 06 or 02 221 36 21
museum@nbb.be

To mark the Europalia Brasil festival, the NBB’s Museum is holding an exhibition under the banner “Of gold and feathers”. Presented as an important value system for the native Indians of the Amazon basin, the feathers also feature predominantly in the rituals and ceremonies which govern their day-to-day lives and play a key role in these Indians’ identity. Spotlight on some of the practices of a tribe that is given particular prominence at this exhibition: the Kayapó.

The name Kayapó means “those who look like monkeys”. This name, which has been known since the 19th century, is that given to the Kayapó people by neighbouring tribes. It originates from certain rituals in which men used to wear a monkey mask. However, they prefer to call themselves Mebêngôkre, meaning “the men from the water hole/place”.

How and where the Kayapó live

Nowadays, the tribe occupies the Rio Xingu valley, a region around the southern tributary of the Amazon river in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. Since the arrival of the colonizers, several sub-groups have been established, with splits often being caused by the choice of how relations are conducted with “white man”. They are scattered about quite deeply in the forest and live in little circular villages arranged around a central plaza. Even today, some of these groups choose to live their lives completely cut off from the outside world.

Like most Indians, the Kayapó keep a close relationship with the surrounding nature. In their view, everything that the universe is made up of is intimately linked, indissociable. Each and every thing only exists through the relationship it has with other things; so it is important to maintain a degree of harmony between the different constituent parts. The rituals and ceremonies that they carry out will therefore always keep a direct link with nature and will primarily aim to smooth tension between the men and spirits (the deceased, animals, etc.) that populate the world.

The village is regarded as the centre of the universe, the only socialised place. By definition, everything that can be found outside this place, and has no name, is synonymous with danger. It is the natural habitat of animals and above all of spirits that the Kayapó fear the most. Since they are particularly abundant at night and likely to inflict terrible woes on mankind, this goes some way to explaining why the Kayapó are afraid of the night. In order to prevent their social space from being overrun by the natural and wild domain, numerous ceremonies are held featuring jewellery and costumes, songs and dancing in order to establish a constant link with nature and to ease people’s minds.

The Kayapó attach great importance to language, to names and to oratory practice. Besides, they describe themselves as “those who speak well” in order to distinguish their tribe from other peoples. The areas outside the village that they visit frequently (hunting zones in the forest, fields, etc.) become socialised by being given a name.

The importance of names can be found in the so-called naming ritual. At birth, the child is given several names: ‘common’ names, borrowed from nature or an animal, and ‘beautiful’ names, inspired by ceremonial elements. The ritual itself takes place between the ages of 2 and 8 years so as to confirm the different names and enable children to develop their own identity and become human beings in their own right. For this kind of ceremony especially, the Kayapó organise huge banquets and cover their bodies with temporary tattoos, using plants like Genipa which gives the appearance of a henna tattoo. The motifs are systematically inspired by elements from natural sources (tortoiseshell, insects, …). Through the naming ritual and their decorations, the Indians, who have a highly developed aesthetic sense, become mereremex or “people who extend their beauty”. In their minds, this is the “real nature”of beauty that comes from both within, through the attribution of a name and thus the socialisation of the soul, and from the exterior via tattoos and ornaments. But this ritual can in fact be a source of danger since, apart from mentioning a name borrowed from nature (which is therefore dangerous), ancestors’ ghosts can snatch away the child’s spirit at any moment in time.

To feed the village, the men are responsible for hunting and fishing, which occasionally takes them deep into the heart of the jungle. Given the huge amount of food needed, their expedition can sometimes last for several weeks. Upon their return, the men start chanting songs devoted to the spirits of the animals killed so as to beg them to stay in the wild. The women’s job is to supply the village with sweet potatoes, manioc and fruit, etc. by cultivating plots of land outside the village. For the whole time spent outside the village, they smoke tobacco, because spirits are afraid of smoke. Likewise, before leaving their fields, they blow and spit out their smoke all around themselves to chase away any spirits that might follow them back to the village. This action is as effective as the chanting by the men as they return from hunting.

From the arrival of the first settlers up to the present day, the Indians have been seriously affected by forestry and mining activity, intensive livestock and arable farming, as well as the construction of hydroelectric dams. Not only has their cultural integrity been harmed, but their territory has been encroached upon too. In the face of such damage to their people, it is not surprising that the Kayapó are amongst the most active tribes on the political front. Amidst a blaze of publicity in the media, one of the Kayapó chiefs, Raoni, put himself forward as a mouthpiece for the Amazon Indians’ demands. In the prestigious company of rock star Sting, he went on a world tour in the 1990s to raise global awareness of the indigenous peoples’ cause.

Jean-Christophe Caestecker
Museum Guide

Bibliography

• BOURGEOIS Catherine, “Amazonie, le peuple oublié des Kayapo” sur Terre sacrée, 10 June 2005. http://terresacree.org/kayapo2.htm, consulted on 14/10/2011.
• VERSWIJVER Gustaaf, Kayapó, Indigenous Peoples in Brazil. http://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/kayapo/186 . Consulted on 18/10/2011.
• VERSWIJVER Gustaaf, “The role of birds and their feathers in shaping the South American Indian’s ideal human being” in Of gold and feathers – Exchange and value systems in Brazil, exhibition catalogue, p.87-117.
• Le Vif l’express, ” Indiens d’Amazonie. Passé-présent-avenir”, out of print

Come on a guided tour around the Museum’s top exhibits and then test your knowledge on the wheel of fortune! Success guaranteed… Alongside the vast collection, this year you can also pay a visit to the prestigious temporary exhibition bring held as part of the Europalia.Brasil festival; your guide will take you into a universe of Gold and… feathers!

To round off your visit, you will be offered a drink too. Owing to limited capacity, you are advised to book early. Entrance is free of charge. You can find the full programme for the late-night openings on www.brusselsmuseumsnocturnes.be.

Where?
Museum of the National Bank of Belgium
Rue du Bois sauvage/Wildewoudstraat 10
1000 Brussels

When?
Thursday 27 October
from 17:00 to 22:00

Free admission

Bookings
Tel: 02 221 22 06 or 02 221 36 21
museum@nbb.be

The ‘Gold and Feathers’ exhibition will appeal to anyone who is interested in the past and present riches of Brazil. It brings out the sometimes widely divergent scales of value of the various population groups of this vast country. You can see the glittering gold coins from the Banco Central do Brasil, the magnificent feather ornaments of the Indians (from the collections of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren and the MAS Museum in Antwerp) and the poignant reportage by the Brazilian photographers, Ricardo Funari and João Roberto Ripper depicting the garimpeiros.

The exhibition is open to both individual visitors and groups. Groups can request a guided tour. For school groups, admission and the guided tour are both totally free of charge. Since capacity is limited, you need to book early. Bookings can be made by telephone, (32 2 221 22 06) or by e-mail (museum@nbb.be) , or using the online-booking form.

A catalogue is available in three languages: Dutch, French and English.