Art · Lille, Hauts-de-France
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
One of France’s largest fine art museums, with European painting from the Middle Ages onward.
The Palais des Beaux-Arts is one of France's largest art museums outside Paris. Founded in 1809 under Napoleon's policy of distributing art to regional cities, it moved in 1892 into a grand Belle Époque palace on Place de la République designed by Édouard Bérard and Fernand Delmas.
Its collections cover European painting from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, with major Flemish, Dutch, French and Spanish works, plus sculpture, ceramics, antiquities and a remarkable set of 18th-century relief maps of fortified towns. A 1990s renovation added a glass 'blade' building and a vast atrium used for contemporary commissions.
Highlights
- Flemish masters including Rubens and Van Dyck
- Goya's Les Jeunes and Le Temps (Les Vieilles)
- Relief maps of fortified towns in the basement
- Monumental atrium hosting contemporary installations
