Curtius Museum, Art museum in Féronstrée district, Liège, Belgium

The Grand Curtius occupies the Palais Curtius, a red-brick and Namur-stone building erected between 1597 and 1605 on the Quai de Maestricht, often cited as an archetype of Mosan Renaissance style. Its steep slate roof carries rows of dormers and a decorative metal ridge; the facade repeats bays of brick framed by light stone, topped by a band of carved heads. The museum complex also joins the Louis XVI Hôtel de Hayme de Bomal, the 17th-century Hôtel Brahy and Maison Dewilde, linked by a glass-and-neoclassical extension along Féronstrée.

Jean de Corte, known as Curtius, built the palace between 1597 and 1605 on the Quai de Maestricht, on the site of a former canon's house. The city bought it in 1901, and after restoration by architect Joseph Lousberg the Curtius Museum opened there on 1 August 1909. In 2009 the palace became part of the Grand Curtius, a complex merging five Liège museum collections.

The museum's name comes from Jean de Corte, Latinised as Curtius, a 17th-century Liège arms and gunpowder merchant who built the palace between 1597 and 1605. The Hôtel de Hayme de Bomal, built around 1775 for Jean-Baptiste de Hayme de Bomal, later became the seat of the Ourthe department prefecture in 1793 and was decorated in Empire style around 1800; Napoleon Bonaparte stayed there several times. His painted portrait, that of his wife, a sculpted bust and memorabilia are now in the collection.

The museum occupies four historic buildings linked by a glass-roofed new construction, entered from Féronstrée near the Saint-Barthélemy collegiate church. Only about five percent of the 100,000 objects are on permanent display, arranged thematically and chronologically, so plan your route by collection. A café-restaurant and museum shop are on site.

The glass collection began with Alfred Baar and his son Armand, whose widow deposited it at the Curtius museum in 1946; the city bought it in 1952. It became a separate section in 1959 and grew with 19th- and 20th-century pieces and Val-Saint-Lambert crystal.