Built in neo-Gothic style, it was originally erected in memoriam of Queen Louise-Marie, wife of King Leopold I, to the design of the architect Joseph Poelaert.

A devotional booklet dedicated to this Marian title was published with imprimatur by the Catholic deacon in Brussels, Pastor Hubert Cœkelberghs, on 17 July 1874.

The project initially selected was a fairly simple brick building with stone bands and whose façade was surmounted by a single spire covered with slate.

In 1902, as the building continued to deteriorate, a Munich architect, Baron Heinrich von Schmidt, was commissioned to carry out a general examination of its condition.

[3][8][9] The Marian image is a 13th-century wooden carved statue in the Romanesque style as the Sedes Sapientiae (English: Seat of Wisdom), with the enthroned Madonna and Child holding a scepter of Fleur-de-lys and a dove (representing a soul), respectively.

Pious legends claim that Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria moved this image in 1652 to the Collegiate Church of St. Michael and St. Gudula (future cathedral of Brussels) due to a long drought, and was later returned to Laeken, where it rained.

[2][11] These tombs include: The adjacent Laeken Cemetery behind the church is known as the Belgian Père Lachaise because it is the burial place of the major Catholic nobility, important families and some famous artists.