Situation

The city of Spa became renowned for its ferruginous springs as early as the 16th century. Their medicinal waters not only attracted many visitors, they were also exported internationally. Gradually the city became the so-called ‘Café de l’Europe’. Visited by kings and czars, political refugees, artists and philosophers, it was a peaceful haven where a wide range of philosophies, social questions and artistic visions could be discussed. The ‘bobelins’, as the locals used to call these international visitors, walked through the surrounding forests, along landscaped paths on their way to the springs. They came to see and be seen, for diplomacy or espionage, and even for the arts. The local painter Antoine Fontaine depicted these illustrious visitors in his Livre d’Or (1894), a 9 metres wide group portrait spanning four centuries of visitors such as tsar Peter the Great, Voltaire, Joseph II, Descartes, Victor Hugo, Wellington, Farnese…