The Compagnie des Bronzes in Brussels: where art and industry converge.

03/02/2025

I must have walked past it literally thousands of times without ever really stopping. Until I decided to finally take a closer look at the horseback statue of King Albert I in the garden of Mont des Arts near Brussels Central Station. Cie des Bronzes - La Fonderie - Bruxelles , was barely legible on the side of the foot. My interest was piqued. Exactly what is the story behind this Brussels bronze foundry? And does anything remain of it? 

In the first half of the 19th century, the industrial revolution was in full swing in the still young nation of Belgium. The Brussels-Charleroi Canal, which connected the coal basin around Charleroi with Molenbeek-Saint-Jean on the western outskirts of Brussels, was commissioned in 1832. Gradually, factories and workshops began to pop up everywhere. The main activities included brewing, textiles, and metalworking. The farming village quickly earned the nickname "Belgium's Manchester," where the constant hammering and hissing of machinery filled the air. 

  

Monumental statues 

In 1854, the small family business Cormann et Compagnie was founded on Rue d'Assaut, near the St Michael and St Gudula Cathedral, in the heart of Brussels. It relocated to 27 Rue Ransfort in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean in 1862-1863. Starting in 1878, it was officially named La Compagnie des Bronzes. 

Initially, the company focused on producing and selling affordable zinc items, such as lamps. With the advent of new and improved production techniques, the rise of the bourgeoisie, and orders from both domestic and international markets, the following decades witnessed significant expansion in the product range. This included zinc for construction, artistic zinc pieces, bronze, iron, and other metal products such as chandeliers, candelabras, vases, lanterns, furniture, and luxury bronze items like chimney stacks. The company also produced industrial bronze, gas pipes, fittings, and appliances for public and private gas and electric lighting, along with busts, fountains, and monumental statues that embellished streets, squares, and parks. To forge its own identity both at home and abroad, the young nation sought to immortalise prominent figures from the past and present in bronze: kings, nobles, statesmen, freedom fighters, artists, scientists, literary figures, and industrialists. Statuomania raged. Monumental, but also more modest, sculptures were expertly crafted by the hundreds - or indeed thousands - in the sculpture workshop, melting, bronze casting, and assembly halls of the Compagnie des Bronzes . Its order book was overflowing. 

But things took a turn for the worse from 1960 onwards when bronze went out of fashion. The Compagnie des Bronzes finally went under in 1979. It now serves as the Brussels Museum of Industry and Labour - La Fonderie (the Foundry), which is well worth a visit.                  

Explore for yourself the many masterpieces of bronze casting, spanning from Sweden to Canada and from Bolivia to Australia.