1853 in Belgium
# 1853 in Belgium

Events in the year 1853 in Belgium.

## Incumbents

    Monarch: Leopold I
    Head of government: Henri de Brouckère

## Events

* 9 April – Prince Leopold sworn in as a member of the Belgian Senate.
* 9 June – Aalst railway station opens.
* 22 August – Marriage of Leopold, Duke of Brabant, heir to the Belgian throne, and Marie Henriette of Austria.
* 23 August – International Maritime Conference opens in Brussels under the chairmanship of Adolphe Quetelet and at the instigation of Matthew Fontaine Maury (ends 8 September)
* 19 September – First International Statistical Congress opens in Brussels under the chairmanship of Adolphe Quetelet.

## Publications

### Periodicals

* Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, H. Tarlier)
* Annales de pomologie belge et étrangère (Commission Royale de Pomologie) begins publication.
* Annuaire de la noblesse de Belgique, vol. 5, edited by Isidore de Stein d'Altenstein
* La Belgique Horticole, vol. 3.
* Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, vol. 20 (Brussels, M. Hayez)
* Recueil des pièces imprimées par ordre de la Chambre des Représentants, vol. 3.

### Guidebooks and directories

* Bradshaw's illustrated hand-book for travellers in Belgium, on the Rhine, and through portions of Rhenish Prussia (London, W.J. Adams)
* Francis Coghlan, The Miniature Guide to the Rhine through Belgium and Holland (London, J. Onwhyn)

## Art and architecture

### Buildings

* Aalst railway station

### Paintings

* Henri Leys, Frans Floris Going to a Saint Luke's Day Feast 1540
* Charles Verlat, Buffalo Ambushed by a Tiger
* Antoine Wiertz, Hunger, Madness and Crime

## Births

* 31 January – Marie-Elisabeth Belpaire, Flemish activist (died 1948)
* 14 February – Jan Van Rijswijck, politician (died 1906)
* 20 December – Marie Parent, feminist (died 1934)

## Deaths

* 11 January – Floris Nollet (born 1794), engineer
* 18 January – Antoine Payen the Younger (born 1792), painter
* 12 February – Joseph Van Hoorde (born 1818), horticulturalist
* 5 March — Hirsch Sommerhausen (born 1781), educator and translator
* 30 April – Edouard Mary (born 1796), social reformer
* 3 December – Lazare Richtenberger (born 1792), banker
