Monument équestre à Léopold II

The Drie Gapers monument, inaugurated in 1931 on Ostend's Royal Galleries, commemorates Leopold II as a benefactor of Ostend and the Congo. The sculptor Alfred Courtens made the bronze equestrian statue, and his brother, the architect Antoine Courtens, the architectural base. Two sculpted groups flank it: the gratitude of the Congolese and the tribute of the Ostend fishing population. A protected monument since 1981, it has become a focus of colonial-era controversy and was vandalised, notably in 2004.

Translated from the French original.