The Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse is an emblematic heritage site in the historic district of Vieux-Lille. It is housed in the Hospice Comtesse, a medieval hospital founded in 1237 by Countess Jeanne de Flandre. The museum has occupied the building of the Augustinian sisters’ community since 1962, and the sisters managed the hospital until 1793. Classified as a Monument Historique in 1923 and 1991, and labeled Musée de France in 2003, it combines architectural and historical significance with a public role in heritage preservation.
Its collections, numbering nearly 70,000 works, reflect the social and cultural history of Lille, including the city’s decorative arts. The museum presents permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, including contemporary art, as part of a varied program. It receives between 100,000 and 160,000 visitors annually and is regarded as a place of memory by Lille residents and tourists. The site’s architecture represents more than 750 years of hospitality and generosity, while the museum continues to work on its future Scientific and Cultural Project (PSC).
Nearby Objects
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Hospice Comtesse 0 m away -
Lille Cathedral 100 m away -
Collégiale Saint-Pierre 120 m away -
Place aux Oignons 120 m away -
Place Gilleson 140 m away
Hospice Comtesse and Its Museum Role
Located in the historic district of Vieux-Lille, the Hospice Comtesse is an emblematic heritage site of the city of Lille. It is housed in a medieval hospital founded in 1237 by Countess Jeanne de Flandre, and its architecture represents more than 750 years of hospitality and generosity. The building also contains the former community of the Augustinian sisters, who managed the hospital until 1793. Since 1962, it has housed the Museum of Art and History of the city, whose collections are presented in this historic setting.
The museum brings together nearly 70,000 works that reflect the social and cultural history of the capital of Flanders, as well as the history of Lille and Lille decorative arts. It is a place of memory appreciated by both Lille residents and tourists, and it receives between 100,000 and 160,000 visitors on average each year. The museum presents permanent collections and organizes temporary exhibitions to promote its heritage, including contemporary art and a varied program. It also has a public service mission to conserve heritage works and enrich the collections through acquisitions.
The Hospice Comtesse was classified as a Monuments Historiques in 1923 and 1991, and it was labeled Musee de France in 2003. The institution is also working on its future Scientific and Cultural Project (PSC).
From Hospital to Museum
The Hospice Comtesse began as a Lille hospital dedicated to the Virgin, founded in 1237 by Countess Jeanne de Flandre. It welcomed poor people, sick persons, pilgrims, passersby, and travelers, who were assisted by nuns following Saint Augustine's rules. The institution developed during the 13th century in a city marked by social problems and epidemics, and in 1245 it was renamed l'hopital Comtesse in recognition of its founder. Its resources came from agricultural lands across Flanders, tithe collections, and seigneurial rights granted by Countess Jeanne de Flandre and Countess Marguerite de Constantinople, as well as from benefactors' donations and real estate rentals. It also benefited from exemptions from taxes, tallages, and toll duties.
The buildings were repeatedly altered by fire and changing needs. In 1468, a fire destroyed the hospital except for the infirmary, after which the sick ward was rebuilt between 1468 and 1472 and the ground floor of the community building was constructed between 1477 and 1482. Another fire in 1649 led to repairs directed by architect Julien Destrree, who built the building parallel to rue de la Monnaie with maisons de louage. The last classical style wing was built in 1724, as shown by a facade medallion.
The institution changed over time as medicine and public authority evolved. In 1793, the Augustinian sisters left and were replaced by hospital citizen women. During the 19th century, the site hosted elderly people and orphans and was then called Hospice des Vieux Hommes et Bleuets reunis. Building conditions worsened and repair costs became high. Orphans were relocated in 1921, elderly persons in 1940, and the departure of the last elderly residents ended the hospital function. The regional hospital center then used the buildings as a central warehouse.
From Hospital to City Museum
After the First World War, the museum project grew around an increasing collection of folklore objects and a desire to gather material related to regional folklore and the diffusion of knowledge in Lille. In 1932, Jules Scrive-Loyer proposed the idea to the Amis de Lille. The planned institution was meant to include a library, archives, permanent and temporary exhibitions, and conferences, and it was also conceived as a place devoted to several regional areas, including Lille, Walloon and Flemish Flanders, Hainaut, Artois, and Tournaisis. In 1936, the interior of the Porte de Paris in Lille was considered as a first location, but the project did not succeed and the search for a site continued.
A decisive step came in 1942, when Georges Henri Riviere identified the Hospice Comtesse in Lille as the future museum site. In 1943, the municipal council began discussions with the director of Lille Beaux-Arts about creating the museum in the former hospice. Negotiations then continued during the 1940s with the Lille regional hospital, which owned the buildings. On July 3, 1945, the municipal council adopted the principle of an emphyteutic lease, and from October 1945 it planned restoration works, excluding modern annexes. Restoration started in 1946 and 1947, with two-thirds of the funding coming from the state for the central courtyard buildings. These buildings were classified as Historic Monuments by decree on January 4, 1947, and the facades and roofs of the remaining buildings, except the central courtyard buildings, were classified by order on April 24, 1947.
The lease was later signed with the Centre Hospitalier de Lille, with retroactive effect to 1951. It committed the city to devote all the premises exclusively to the folklore museum, while allowing temporary retention of the central store of the Centre Hospitalier until relocation to the Hotel de l administration. Important restoration work continued on the Hospice Comtesse until 1968. Museographic arrangements were made on the first floor of the community building in 1952, and the Hel collection, made up of sixty-two musical instruments, was acquired in 1957. The city took possession of the premises on April 26, 1960, and a presentation organized by Pierre Maurois and Albert Chatelet followed in May 1960 on the ground floor of the community building. Furniture and art objects deposited by the Hospices de Lille, together with pieces from the Musee des Beaux-Arts collections, were also displayed.
On June 22, 1962, the municipal council decided to open the Musee de l Hospice Comtesse to the public. Albert Chatelet was entrusted with curation. The museum was scheduled to open three days a week with an entrance fee of 0.50 F, and the revenues were allocated to acquiring museum objects and developing the ethnography and folklore museum project. In 1969, it received an important part of the musee lillois collections from the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lille. It also housed archaeological remnants in the courtyard, reserves, and cellars because of threats linked to urban renewal. The museum then developed a broader program centered on the history of Lille and French Flanders, applied arts, and popular arts and traditions of French Flanders.
The museum's identity continued to evolve through restoration, new acquisitions, and changing curatorial priorities. In 1987, Aude Cordonnier became director-curator and sought to move beyond Lille and regional boundaries in order to present the art and culture of the former Low Countries. The museum also developed a program for heritage and architecture animation and promotion, in partnership with the ministries of Culture and National Education and the Lille Tourism Office, with aims including cultural tourism, educational activities, heritage knowledge diffusion, and resident awareness of heritage and environment. Later, Aude Cordonnier and Catherine Monnet proposed repositioning the site as a city history museum, emphasizing the historical character of the buildings, the potential of the collections, and the aim of helping the public understand the city's evolution and history through the buildings and collections.
From Hospital to Exhibition Venue
The history of the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse includes its transformation from hospital to museum and its repeated use as a venue for temporary exhibitions. During the Lille 2004 European Capital of Culture event, it hosted the Flower Power exhibition, led by Alain Tapie. From that point, it continued to host exhibitions produced by lille3000 at roughly three-year intervals, showing its role as a regular site for major cultural programming.
Among these exhibitions were Fantastic by Huang Yong Ping in 2012, Phnom Penh for Renaissance in 2015, Intenso/Mexicano's Eldorado in 2019, and Le serpent cosmique for Utopia in 2022. The museum is also scheduled to host Fiesta in 2025. Alongside these large-scale projects, it presented Secrets de collections lilloises in 2007, an exhibition organized by the Rotary Club and the Lille municipality. That exhibition featured artworks from five private collections and illustrated a century of art from the early twentieth to the twenty-first century.
The museum also hosted several exhibitions linked to other themes and events. These included Jean Pasquero, lumieres de la ville, cinemas lillois des annees vingt during Transphotographiques 2007, Mahjoub Ben Bella, la couleur incantatoire in 2013, exhibitions of Erik Desmazieres and Omer Bouchery in 2014, A la belle enseigne, boutiques lilloise d'autrefois in 2015, Safet Zec, la peinture et la vie in 2016, Heros de fil et de bois, marionnettes de Lille et de Roubaix in 2017, Itineraires singuliers in 2019, and L'atelier Pasquero : une aventure photographique in 2020 and 2023. Since 2013, the institution has been directed by Bruno Girveau, and it is directed by Juliette Singer since an unspecified date.
Current Leadership
Juliette Singer, born in 1974, is the only fact provided in the source material for this section. No additional information about her role, connection to the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse, or wider historical context is given here.
From Hospital to Museum
The project Histoire du musee: de l hopital au musee aims to strengthen the identity and place of two museums in the Lille territory. It works on linking with local actors and promotes openness to public space as well as accessibility of the location. Under Juliette Singer's exhibition policy, the project targets the contemporary scene while continuing permanent exhibition redesigns with differentiated exploration paths. It also develops intangible heritage and offers programs for families and children.
Collections Reflecting Lille and Its Region
The museum collections were assembled from several sources, including the Musee Lillois inventory ML, and were shaped by a clear intention to reflect the city and region through the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse. Their formation began with numerous donations and bequests at the time of the museum's creation, and it was later expanded through deposits connected to the former hospital and to the history of Lille. Among these are 117 furniture and art objects deposited by the Hospices de Lille in partnership with CHRU Lille between 1962 and 2007. Before the opening of the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse, many pieces were kept either at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille or on CHRU premises, including 101 paintings from the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille.
The collections are organized into different fonds by material and by major artistic domain, with current fonds listed alphabetically. The number of pieces varies greatly from one domain or department to another, ranging from fewer than 15 to more than 35,000 elements. Graphic arts form an important part of the holdings and consist mainly of original drawings, prints, and plans showing the growth of Lille and its monuments. They also include collections assembled by 19th-century Lille scholars and regional artists who focused on city identity, as well as popular images of the Northern region and Hauts-de-France in the form of prints, albums, and copper plates.
Other parts of the collections include wooden sculptures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly from deposits from Lille hospitals, as well as civil and religious architectural elements, religious and civil sculptures, and signs. These works display the richness of the decorations and motifs that once adorned Lille interiors. The museum also holds the oldest pieces from archaeological excavations in the Hauts-de-France region, ceramics such as glazed earthenware, porcelain, faience, and utilitarian and decorative objects from several production centers, and religious ceramics and faience tiles acquired through donations and purchases since 1962. Additional holdings include items from Old Lille houses destroyed during mid-20th-century urban transformation, objects from traditional trades such as clog makers, roofers, bookbinders, and hatters, as well as weights, measures, seals, pewter objects, weapons, and the Lille goldsmithing collection. Many of these collections, especially those formed between the 1960s and 1980s, include large tools and everyday objects such as signs, metal utensils, carts, harnesses, wooden tools, millstones, washing tubs, bathtubs, baskets, suitcases, and baby equipment. Together, these pieces evoke the atmosphere of a 19th-century hospital while also documenting the material history of the city and region.
The Hel Instrument Collection
In 1957, the museum collections bought the collection of ancient musical instruments gathered by Joseph Hel and Pierre Hel. The collection had been acquired by Joseph Hel and Pierre Hel in Lille from 1865 to 1937. It consists mainly of lutherie from the 18th century to the early 20th century. Among the instruments are bowed strings such as the bass viol, viola d'amore, and violin, as well as plucked strings such as the guitar, cittern, and mandolin. The collection was shown in 1992 in an exhibition titled La collection Hel, ancient musical instruments gathered by two luthiers.
Collections and Historical Development
The collections at the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse were once shown as a permanent exhibition until the closure of the Camille Desmet wing in 2002. They now form a broad body of material that reflects both the history of the museum and the development of Lille itself. The collections evolved from an ethnography and folklore museum of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region into an art and history museum of Lille, and they expanded significantly in the 1970s through the acquisition of homogeneous sets.
A major part of the holdings consists of a photographic fund of more than 55,000 items, covering the period from 1845 to 1970. It includes many old postcards, negatives on glass plates and flexible support, positives on glass and metal, and paper prints, whether isolated or in albums. These images were created mainly by professional, anonymous Lille or regional photographers, as well as by amateur photographers. The photographic fund includes the professional workshop collection of Jean Pasquero and his son Rene Pasquero, with over 18,000 items, and the Pollet-Carpa fund from a Lille postcard publishing house, with 11,200 items.
The museum also preserves furniture and domestic objects that reflect influences from the former Low Countries and France since 1667. These objects include Ribbank furniture, buffet-panetiere, and dressing tables, and they illustrate the tastes of societies from the 16th century to the early 20th century. Other collections document religious painting in Northern France from the 16th to 18th centuries, with Arnould de Vuez among the artists represented, alongside portraits of personalities and historical figures such as the Dukes of Burgundy. Genre scenes by Lille and Flemish artists, including Louis Joseph Watteau and Francois Watteau, are also part of the collections.
Several specialized fonds add further depth. The marionette fonds show the social development of Lille and Roubaix and include Lille posters and nearly 80 marionettes in total, among them 38 marionettes from the Louis de Budt theater dated 1849 to 1936. These holdings were formed through donations from individuals and the Amis des Musees de Lille association, and they were enriched by collection policies that included the Lille theater of Henri Buisset. The museum also preserves about forty Lille rod puppets from the last quarter of the 19th century.
Other holdings include tombstones and elements of civil architecture, often from archaeological excavations in Lille, though this fonds is currently under inventory and study. Textile and costume collections contain several tapestries related to Guillaume Werniers' manufacture in Lille from the 18th century, 14 tapestries showing Flemish and French influences, military banners, religious and associative flags, mostly women's and children's clothing from the 18th and early 19th centuries, a 19th-century nativity scene made with wax, fabric, and stuffing figures, and a lace collection from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Changing Museography at Hospice Comtesse
Since the 2000s, the museography of the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse has undergone several changes in the display of its permanent collections. The first major updates accompanied the Lille exhibition from May 2 to September 10, 2000, when renovation work began on the dormitory floor, woodwork, and stair tiles. During that period, the ground floor was painted green and the dormitory red, while a display case was built in the pharmacy and a large central picture rail was installed in the dormitory. After the exhibition, the museography for the permanent collections was reinvested, and temporary exhibitions were regularly used to question the arrangement of the permanent displays. The Flower Power exhibition presented about thirty paintings from the 1970s, and at the end of 2004 the permanent dormitory artworks were moved to reserves to make room for the Strange and Familiar exhibition, which also extended into the sick room and chapel.
A new museography directed by Alain Tapie was inaugurated in 2006. At that time, the community area was repainted gray, the large pharmacy display case was dismantled, and the dormitory received square display cases and rails mimicking nun cells. More recent work continued this process of renewal. At the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, the entire ground floor was renovated because of insufficient lighting. The pharmacy was reorganized with new furniture on the left wall, including La lecon de pharmacie and pharmacy pots from Seclin hospice, while furniture dedicated to multi-sensory mediation was placed in the center of the room. The same phase introduced more readable labels, trilingual room terminals, a space reserved for young audience mediation, and digital mediation.
The dormitory was redesigned again at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. New picture rails and display cases were installed, and the exhibition space was divided into five sections: Une ville, un decor, Figures du pouvoir, Vie marchande, Fetes et processions, and Lille et le monde. This reorganization reflected the architectural diversity and former conventual and hospital history of Hospice Comtesse, its location in the city center, and its historical ties to the counts of Flanders and their successors. The collections were oriented toward the site's historical and spiritual richness, while the first-floor route was designed to illustrate social and cultural life mainly in Lille. The ground floor of the Augustinian community building itself dates from 1477 to 1482 and uses brick, sandstone, and Lezennes stone, with window forms suggesting an influence from Palais Rihour.
Domestic Spaces and Museum Display
The musography of the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse uses domestic interiors to evoke the atmosphere of a Flemish house while also recalling the former hospital's religious life. The kitchen is presented as reflecting the intimacy of an 18th century Flemish house, with a Tournai slab pavement and walls covered in hand-painted cobalt blue faience tiles from Lille. These tiles are described as showing various themes and are probably linked to the Wamps-Masquelier manufacture in Lille, authorized in 1740. This manufacture produced faience tiles in the Dutch manner and supplied the Hospice Comtesse in 1745 and 1752. The room is also interpreted through the work of the nuns, who prepared meals for the sick and the community. A large fireplace with wooden shutters recalls old smokehouses for meat or fish, while a low piece of furniture beneath multi-paned windows served as both a cutting table and a pantry. The room also contains an oblong three-door buffet. This oak buffet is described as rare in the 18th century and custom-made for the room's dimensions, with twisted columns similar to threshing stocks in hospitals in Bruges. A copper cooler is another notable object. It is presented as a type of vessel used before the first refrigeration machines of the 19th century, and the museum example is decorated with fluting, lion's mufles carrying suspension rings, and lion paw feet. Coolers in general were used to hold cold water or ice in winter and, when ice was unavailable, salt or ammoniac salt.
The scullery is assigned a practical role in meal preparation and meat cutting. Its walls are covered with white and purplish-brown faience tiles arranged in a checkerboard pattern, and four decorative panels show a rooster facing a hen, two parrots, a flower vase, and a fruit basket. Some glazed earthenware tiles from the 15th century remain in this area, which is not open to the public.
In the community rooms, furniture and works are assembled to restore the spirituality and atmosphere of a Flemish house. The displays include paintings that present daily activity, portrait and still life combinations, and close-framed scenes featuring a woman of the people beside an imposing still life in vibrant colors. The refectory continues this religious reading of the building: on the ground floor, the nuns ate in silence while one of them read Bible passages from a high chair. Religious-inspired furniture and objects contribute to this solemn atmosphere, including an Antwerp-made bahut-credenza or ribbank and a two-body buffet called a troonkast. These pieces are decorated with iconographic motifs such as fruit garlands, cornucopias, and terms. The ribbank, dating from 1661 and presented as a standard of domestic housing furniture, was mainly used for dishes, books, or food preservation. The two-body buffet is described as having a solid lower section topped by a less deep upper section inspired by printed model collections. Its decoration is strongly Renaissance in character, with the four evangelists shown on the upper part, supported by the upper console entablature beneath two friezes of fruit scrolls. The central drawer in the lower part is ornamented with friezes of marine deities playing viols, scrolls, cupids, and fantastic animals.
Religious Life and Interior Spaces
The museum presents the religious discipline and daily organization of the former Augustinian community through objects and interior spaces. A 16th-century oak statue of Saint Augustine recalls the rule followed by the religious community from 1245. According to the displayed material, this rule was read weekly for nearly six centuries by the nuns, who obeyed the master and the prioress, lived in chastity, owned nothing individually, and regularly practiced austere acts such as fasting and abstinence. Their daily routine was divided between religious duties and the care of the sick. Leadership of the community was shared by a master and a prioress, who ensured both the interests of the hospital and enforcement of the monastic rule.
The prioress's apartments are presented as a distinct domestic and ceremonial area, including a parlor, an office or small living room, a cloakroom, and an oratory. In the parlor, the prioress received private audiences with distinguished guests and visitors. The room contains 17th-century wood paneling and a bench-chest that served both as seating and storage.
The museum also displays eight 18th-century painted ex-votos on the walls. These were offered to the Virgin Mary in thanks for healing or saving a child. They were originally deposited in the Notre-Dame d'Assistance chapel built in 1640 in Lille, on the site of the former chapel of the Counts of Flanders, Notre-Dame juxta aulam. The museum preserves a statue of the Virgin from the old chapel, which was reputed to protect its worshippers and received especially strong popular devotion among dock workers.
Portraits of the Countesses
The section known as Evolution de la museographie du Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse includes two portraits of Countesses Jeanne and Marguerite de Flandre. Painted by Alexis du Rietz between 1681 and 1682, these works recall the role of the two sisters in Lille and in the counties of Flandre and Hainaut. The portraits also reflect the period of Jeanne de Flandre's administration, which was marked by conflicts with her sister Marguerite de Flandre.
Dynastic Conflict Around Marguerite de Flandre
Marguerite de Flandre married Bouchard d'Avesnes, the bailiff of Hainaut, despite the fact that King Philippe Auguste regarded Bouchard's claimed status as an unaccepted title of sub-deacon. Philippe Auguste denounced the marriage to Pope Innocent III as illegal, and the pope annulled the union in 1215. Before this decision, Marguerite and Bouchard took refuge at the chateau d'Houffalize in the Ardennes under the duke of Luxembourg, where their sons Jean and Baudouin were born.
The separation did not end the political tension surrounding the family. Bouchard was captured in 1219 during a raid in Flandre against Jeanne de Flandre, and he was released only after renouncing his marriage to Marguerite in 1221. After the separation, Jeanne de Flandre persuaded Marguerite to marry Guillaume de Dampierre. The wider dispute also included a hermit who claimed to be Count Baudouin, father of Jeanne and Marguerite, after allegedly escaping captivity among Bulgarians for twenty years. He demanded that Jeanne restore sovereignty rights over the counties of Flandre and Hainaut, but Louis VIII discovered that the hermit was an impostor. Bouchard d'Avesnes is suspected of having instigated the claim.
Hospital Care, Daily Life, and Domestic Interiors
The current museography of the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse is divided into five main sections since 2023, and one of its concerns is to show how patient care, domestic routines, and material culture were linked in the institution. One room reconstructs a pharmacy from the 17th and early 18th centuries. In this setting, the museum presents the way the Augustines organized care around hygiene and re-nourishment. Patient treatment included wound cleaning, dressing, and the prescription of medication. The sisters also cultivated medicinal plants and used plants bought in the city to prepare remedies. Pharmaceutical containers such as chevrette, pot canon, pilulier, and bottle are displayed, together with a mediation table inviting visitors to identify ingredients of Theriaque by sight or smell. Theriaque is presented as a universal remedy from Greco-Roman antiquity that remained in use until the 19th century and could contain up to 80 ingredients depending on the recipe.
The pharmacy area also includes evidence of the building's sanitary history. During remodeling work in the 20th century, a sanitary facility was discovered, ventilated by a fenestron connected to the Canal Saint Pierre below. The display includes a niche with a faience commode chair and an 18th-century tin chamber pot. A faience tile panel called crotteux is identified as a Lille manufacturing specialty, and the related figurines are associated with local folk tradition through squatting human shapes. The section also notes that Flemish iconography included scatological humor in crotteux forms, as well as in ronde-bosse, mustard pots, or plates.
Another room focuses on laundry and clothing as part of the patient hygiene ritual. The Augustines maintained laundry and sheets for patients and sometimes made clothes. They used a washing table, laundry press, wardrobe, and chest to manage linens and garments. The museum links this work to Lille's identity as a drapery city based on the production and trade of linen and wool cloth. Linen had been cultivated in Flanders during the Middle Ages, and its fibers were used for cloths, sheets, towels, and lace. A linen press with calendering plates stands at the center of the room; it is described as being made of stacked plates tightened by a large wooden screw. The display notes that in the 18th century laundry was done outdoors, with green grass helping to oxygenate the linen, while starched linen was placed in the press to create crisp folds.
The same area recreates the atmosphere of a 17th century Flemish or Dutch house on the first floor of the community building, in the former Augustinian dormitory with small-paned windows and visible beams. It also includes a painting by Gillis van Tilborch, Le gouter de famille, which illustrates northern bourgeois fashion and lifestyle in the late 17th century. The work presents a Flemish house interior marked by family intimacy and interest in child education. Other objects and images in the exhibition include paintings, sculptures, goldsmith works, and faience objects dating from the 15th century to the French Revolution. The first section of the exhibition highlights Lille's 17th-century enthusiasm for decorative sculpture, the renewal of ornamental models through published collections, and the appearance of new human, animal, and hybrid iconographies such as wooden or stone mermaids. It also draws attention to carved corbels, decorated or painted beam and joist ceilings, and wood paneling with sacred subjects in churches and profane motifs elsewhere.
From Burgundian Capital to Museum Narratives
The museum section on the evolution of its museography presents Lille through a sequence of political and economic periods that shaped the city before and after 1667. It recalls four main governance periods, beginning with the citys founding in 1066 and ending with the siege by French troops in 1667. Under the Counts of Flanders, Lille is described as a prosperous city still subject to the French king. In 1384, Flanders was joined to the Duchy of Burgundy by the marriage of Marguerite de Male to Philippe Le Hardi, and Lille gained importance as an administrative center. The citys trade dynamism increased under Duke Philippe Le Bon, and Philippe le Hardi later entered Lille and promulgated an ordinance organizing his northern domains from the city. The creation of a Council of Justice and a Chamber of Accounts made Lille an administrative capital of the Burgundian States.
The same narrative then moves to the Spanish period and the conflicts of the 16th century. Lille came under Spanish rule during Charles Vs reign, and this century is characterized by political conflicts and religious wars, followed by a period of peace under the Archdukes Albert and Isabella of Austria. The section also connects these historical changes to the War of Devolution, when Louis XIV claimed part of the Spanish Netherlands after Philip IVs death in 1665. The failed attempt to attach Flanders to France triggered the war, French troops arrived at Lilles gates, and the citys nine-day siege ended with capitulation and attachment to France confirmed by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. After 1667, Lille became a major administrative capital.
Several works in the museums collection are used to illustrate these periods. Eight portraits of Counts of Flanders by Arnould de Vuez, created around 1710, were originally made for the antechamber of the Conclave room at Palais Rihour in Lille. These portraits are part of a larger set of 23 commissioned by Spanish sovereign Charles II. Other portraits show Jeanne de Flandre with her two legitimate husbands, Ferrand de Portugal and Thomas de Savoie, and emphasize her role in providing Lille with a charter reorganizing administration and in modernizing the river network that helped the citys trade flourish. Another group consists of eight anonymous portraits executed in Flanders in the 16th century, presented as illustrations of the Burgundian period of Lille.
The museography also places strong emphasis on trade, urban organization, and artistic exchange. Lilles wealth is traced to textile trade through waterways linking the Deule river to the Lys and then to the Scheldt and other wealthy Flemish cities. Commercial and municipal life is shown as concentrated on the forum known as Place du Marche, later Grand Place, which functioned as an urban center with the halle echevinale, a prison, a fountain at the exchange, and a chapel. Echevins are described as controlling and regulating city life, while merchants, artisans, and workers are presented as organized in trade guilds with religious counterparts under patron saints. The section also notes Lilles proximity to major ports, its trade with the Americas, and the arrival in the city of exotic products such as tea, chocolate, sugar, and tobacco. Artistic exchanges are evoked through cherubs in the Conclave room of Palais Rihour, created by Claude Franchomme and Andre-Baptiste Cuvelier, and through feather-crowned figures from the old Lille market hall, described as reminiscent of Spanish conquest motifs in the Americas.
Globes and Scientific Objects
The museums display highlights the evolution of its museography through objects linked to science, geography, and decorative arts. Among the most notable works are two reduced-size globes in Lille, copied from four-meter diameter spheres made by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli. The original globes were created in Paris between 1681 and 1683 for Cardinal d'Estrées and are now kept at the Bibliotheque nationale de France, on the Francois Mitterrand site. Vincenzo Coronelli used numerous accounts and maps for this cartographic project, which reflects a wider fascination with science and the arts of world representation.
The celestial globe, dated 1688, depicts the constellations at the time of King Louis XIV's birth and presents him as a monarch of divine right. It draws on astronomy manuals, including Augustin Royer's celestial maps from 1675, and incorporates technical innovations derived from discoveries such as astrolabes and cartography. The terrestrial globe, dated 1693, offered important geographical knowledge during the reign of Louis XIV, when geography was considered a major attribute of power for governing effectively. The Lille replicas were engraved in Paris by Jean-Baptiste Nolin using drawings by Arnould de Vuez, the official painter of the Hospice Comtesse.
The section also includes a microscope and its case from the 1750s. The microscope was built by the optician Alexis Magny between 1751 and 1754. Magny had previously made seven microscopes at the request of the duke of Chaulnes, a physicist and member of the Académie royale des Sciences. Together, these objects show how the museum connects scientific instruments, cartographic knowledge, and the enrichment of tableware arts through the creation of new objects and utensils for exotic products.
Processions, Fairs, and Civic Traditions
The Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse presents a group of works that trace popular celebrations and civic rituals in Lille and beyond. One display includes a painting by Francois Watteau of the Procession of Lille from 1787, referring to a parade established in 1269 by Marguerite de Constantinople. The procession honored Notre-Dame de la Treille and was first organized on the first Sunday after the Catholic feast of the Trinity. A wooden polychrome torch of the fishmongers' corporation, dated 1691, illustrates the role of trades groups in these events, where confraternities and guilds carried torches and attributes linked to their professions. The presentation also emphasizes the social hierarchy visible in the parade, with clergy, magistrates, and guilds taking part.
Other works by Francois Watteau extend this focus to festive customs in nearby districts. La Fete du Broquelet, dated 1803, shows a celebration honoring Saint Nicolas, held by lace makers at the guinguette of Nouvelle-Aventure in Wazemmes. The museum notes that this guinguette was destroyed in 1862, and that the present market of Wazemmes stands on its former site. La Braderie, dated 1799-1800, recalls the origins of the Braderie of Lille in the franches foires of the 12th century, based on fairs in Flanders and Champagne. According to the display, servants and valets were allowed to sell their masters' secondhand clothes to earn extra money, and the population gradually settled in the streets to display goods for sale, turning the fair into a large flea market.
The section also places Lille within a wider tradition of festive urban imagery by recalling scenes from Antwerp by Alexander van Bredael, including processions and ommegang parades linked to trade guilds, religious communities, and biblical and secular scenes.
The Chapel of the Hospice Comtesse
The chapel of the Hospice Comtesse was rebuilt between 1652 and 1657. It was extended and raised, and it was separated from the ward by a rood screen with a gallery reached by side stairs for singing or for reading liturgical texts. A three-sided apse replaced the original flat apse, similar to those found in the Beaune hospices in Burgundy. Since the museum installation, the chapel has been desacralized. It now has a single nave covered with a coffered wooden roof structure. Its walls are built of Lezennes stone and reinforced with iron tie rods, and they include large rounded arch openings with chambranles with crossettes.
Architecture and Decorative History
The Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse combines a sober exterior with a dripping cornice and a historically rich interior. On the central plan of the apse, three sculpted coats of arms represent Portugal, Flandre, and Savoie, commemorating Countess Jeanne de Flandre and her two successive husbands. A niche in the lower part was once occupied by a statue of the Virgin. Inside, the decor was originally more elaborate and included a large altarpiece painting by Arnould de Vuez, as well as two sculpted groups: Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus, and Saint Anne and the Virgin child. These figures are placed in niches decorated with shells and horns of abundance. During restoration works in the 20th century, traces of frescoes were also revealed.
The sickroom forms an oblong space with a single nave covered by a boarded barrel vault. After a fire, it was rebuilt in stone from Lezennes on a sandstone base between 1468 and 1475. An anonymous emblematic painting representing the sickroom is preserved by the Centre Hospitalier Regional de Lille and is classified as a historic monument by decree. In summer 2011, the Heritage Service of Lille launched a roofing slate restoration project for the sickroom. Restoration of the timber frame also brought to light traces of a square watchtower, which was probably dismantled in the 18th century because its weight threatened the timber frame. The watchtower was later rebuilt by decision of the City of Lille, made in Douai, and returned to its original location using a crane.
The Medicinal Garden
The muséographie of the Musee de l'Hospice Comtesse includes a medicinal garden at the back of the community building, reconstituted by gardener Eric Boulet in 1988. It was recreated according to a 16th century Italian plan, with boxwoods laid out in crisscross patterns. The garden, also called a jardin des simples, represents a medieval space for rare or foreign plants used in the preparation of remedies. Among the plants cultivated there are absinthe, acanthe, aurone, balsamite, beteine, chicoree, fenouil, fraxinelle, guimauve, iris de Florence, lavande officinale, lin cultive, melisse, menthe pouliot, muguet, origan, pivoine officinale, romarin, rue fetide, sauge officinale, souci, and violette odorante.
Temporary Exhibitions Since 2014
Since 2014, the museum has organized temporary exhibitions that included a show devoted to Jef Aerosol and a retrospective of the artist Charles Szymkowicz. These exhibitions received visitors in 2016, 2023, and 2024. Foreign visitors accounted for 28 percent of the visitors to these exhibitions, indicating a notable international audience.