Palais Des Beaux-Arts De Lille

Lille’s Palais des Beaux-Arts packs centuries of European art into a monumental Belle Époque building. Opened in 1892, it was part of a wider movement in France to establish public museums after the Revolution and has grown into one of the country’s largest museums outside Paris. The collection ranges from antiquity to modern art, with paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya, Delacroix, Courbet, Monet and Picasso. Visitors can also find sculptures, drawings, prints and an extensive collection of ancient objects. A remarkable highlight is the museum’s basement, where large-scale relief maps of fortified cities offer a very different way of exploring European history.