‘Old England’ is a 1899 former department store in Brussels, Belgium, that is an art nouveau showpiece with a superlative black facade all decorated with wrought iron and beautifully arched period windows which contains the MIM collection of musical instruments.
Originally attached to the Royal Conservatory of Brussels with the purpose of demonstrating early instruments to students, the MIM collection was created in 1877 with a collection of a hundred Indian instruments given to Belgian King Leopold II by Rajah Sourindro Mohun Tagore in 1876 and the collection of the celebrated Belgian musicologist FranÇois-Joseph FÉtis, purchased by the Belgian government in 1872 and put on deposit in the Conservatory, where FÉtis was the first director.
