Laeken Cemetery

Laeken Cemetery (French: Cimetière de Laeken, Dutch: Begraafplaats van Laken) in Brussels, Belgium, is the city's oldest cemetery still in function and the resting place of the Belgian royal family. It is known as the Belgian Père Lachaise, after Paris' famous cemetery, because it is the burial place of the rich and the famous and for the abundance of its funerary heritage.

Cimetière de Laeken
Begraafplaats van Laken
View of the Church of Our Lady of Laeken
Details
Established1275
Location
Laeken, City of Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region
CountryBelgium
Coordinates50°52′46″N 4°21′11″E
TypePublic, non-denominational
Size6.3 hectares (16 acres)
Find a GraveCimetière de Laeken
Begraafplaats van Laken

Description

The installation of the Belgian royal family in 1831 and the burial of Queen Louise in 1850 contributed to the appeal of Laeken.

The cemetery houses very fine examples of 19th-century funerary art and also features an original bronze cast of Auguste Rodin's Thinker, purchased in 1927 by the antiquarian and art collector Josef Dillen to use as his own memorial. Next to the entrance, there is a small museum dedicated to the sculptor Ernest Salu and his successors.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, original bronze

The adjacent Church of Our Lady of Laeken is the site of the Royal Crypt of Belgium, consecrated in 1872.

Notable interments

Personalities buried there include:

Graves

See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Laeken Cemetery.

References

Notes
  1. George Ripley, Charles Anderson Dana, The American cyclopaedia: a popular dictionary of general knowledge, volume 10
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