 The first head curator was Antoine-Guillaume-Bernard Scheyes and the collections expanded rapidly, thanks to important bequests from such persons as Gustave Hegemans (1861) and Emile de Meester de Ravestein (1874).When the Halle Gate became too small to hold the continually expanding number of items, the decision was taken to split the collections, and in 1889, under the new head curator, Eugène Van Overloop, the objects from classical antiquity were moved to the Cinquantenaire Palace, which had been built on the initiative of King Leopold II.In 1906, the ethnographic collection was likewise transferred there, the collection of arms and armour remaining at the Halle Gate.