Spring Trip 2017 - Lille - day 2

Day 2. The main objective of the day - to see the Plans-Reliefs in the city's art museum, the Palais Beaux-Arts.

Going from the hotel I passed a two interesting statues.

Marshall Foch.

General Faidherbe

General Louis Faidherbe (1818 - 1889) was born in Lille. During the Franco - Prussian War he became Commander in Chief of the Army of the North.


When I got to the Palais I found it was hidden behind scaffolding as major renovations were underway, so here is a photo of the building from Google Search.

The Plans-Reliefs are in the basement. As the majority were made around 1700 - 1720, they are kept in large glass cases under very restricted lighting.

First attempted photo.

After twiddling around with some of the dials on the camera, my second attempt.

The model of Lille citadel

To give you an idea of the size of these plans-reliefs, I found these two images from the Musée des Plans-Reliefs in Paris. The Chief Conservator is supervising the assembling of the model of the town of Besancon.

Lille's collection is of 15 of the forts from the northern region of France and southern Belgium, many formed part of Vauban's Pré Carré. The forts are Lille, Avesnes, Bergues, Bouchain, Gravelines, Maastricht, Aire, Calais, Ath, Namur, Menin, Tournai, Audenarde, Ypres and Charleroi.

Upstairs, there were a number interesting items.

This unattributed bust is believed to be of Vauban

A young Napoleon Bonaparte, by Charles Corbet

I have forgotten the name of this picture.

There is much more, works by Delacroix, Goya and Courbet and others in this very nice museum.

However, sometimes I am perplexed by contemporary art - is this art or design? Or whimsy?