The Mayer van den Bergh Museum in Antwerp, Belgium, contains a fine collection of stained-glass panels, mainly Southern Netherlandish roundels from the Early Modern period. As an internationally active private collector in the late nineteenth century, Fritz Mayer van den Bergh (1858-1901) maintained close contacts with art dealers, museum professionals and other private collectors from various European countries. In the eventual museum, the collector’s mother Henriëtte van den Bergh (1838-1920) integrated the stained-glass panels into the decorative scheme of its historicizing interiors. This article explores Fritz and Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh’s collecting and display strategies, traces their underlying motivations, and reconstructs the function historical stained glass served within the overall conception of the museum. It will distinguish the Catholic social networks and neo-Gothic philosophy of the Mayer van den Bergh family as their major incentive. The appendix provides a complete catalogue of the Mayer van den Bergh collection of stained glass.