Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, Lille

The Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille ranks as France's second-largest fine arts museum after the Louvre, holding over 72,000 works in a magnificent Baroque-revival building. Napoleon's 1801 decree selected Lille among fifteen cities to receive artworks seized during the Revolution. The museum opened in 1809 in a confiscated church before moving to its current purpose-built palace in 1892. Architects Édouard Bérard and Fernand Delmas designed the grand structure, renovated in the 1990s and reopened in 1997.

The collection surveys European painting from the Renaissance to the 19th century. Hieronymus Bosch's bizarre Concert in the Egg, Jacques-Louis David's Belisarius Begging for Alms, and Courbet's After Dinner at Ornans anchor the painting galleries. Jean-Baptiste Wicar, a Lille-born pupil of David, bequeathed his exceptional collection of Italian drawings, including works by Raphael, making this department second only to the Louvre. Works by Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya, and Delacroix trace four centuries of European mastery. The museum also holds notable sculpture and archaeological collections.