A l’Imaige Nostre-Dame

The house at number forty on the Grand Place carries the name A l’Imaige Nostre-Dame. It is easily picked out by the stone statue of the Virgin Mary nestled in a niche between the second-floor windows. While the guildhalls surrounding the square display exuberant Baroque gilding, this building maintains a more restrained, traditional appearance. In the late seventeenth century, after French artillery flattened much of the square, the house was rebuilt, incorporating bits of older masonry salvaged from the smoldering debris of the city.