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Upon his death in 1859, Benoît De Puydt, an art lover and resident of Bailleul, bequeathed the town a grand house and an eclectic art collection. The Musée Benoît-De-Puydt opened in 1861, since when the collection has been augmented by purchases, State deposits, and gifts.
A significant part of the original building, along with three-quarters of the collection, was lost during the First World War. The museum was rebuilt in neo-Flemish style and new artworks—above all Dutch and Flemish—were acquired to replace those destroyed and enhance the collection.
The history of Flanders and the Southern Netherlands is reflected in the many and varied artistic disciplines represented in the collection. For example, another bequest to the museum was an ensemble of ten cabinets from Antwerp and elsewhere in Flanders, of which seven have been restored. The museum also holds an impressive collection of wooden sculptures and everyday objects characteristic of church interiors and the popular piety of the old Low Countries from the fourteenth century onward. Among the more remarkable pieces are several fifteenth-century reredos fragments from the Southern Netherlands depicting John the Baptist, and a collection of cherub sculptures by Artus Quellinus.
Sixteenth-century painting is well represented, with works such as the Virgin Nursing the Christ Child by Adriaen Isenbrant, The Extraction of the Stone of Madness by Henri met de Bles, an Adoration of the Magi from the workshop of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, plus works from the workshops of Francken, Otto van Veen, and David Vinckboons. Also present are emblematic Flemish and Dutch genre paintings of the seventeenth century by masters such as Pieter Jansz. Quast, Jacob Savery II, and Egbert van Heemskerk.
Further areas that reflect the regional identity of the museum’s collections include lace, which is known to have been made in Bailleul and Flanders since at least the sixteenth century; cartography; prints after Nicolaes Berchem, David Teniers, and Van de Velde; and ceramics adopting the artistic templates of Netherlandish pottery from majolica to earthenware decorated in overglaze enamels, as produced in Delft and the various manufactories of French Flanders.
Laurent Beyaert, Head of Collections (April 2025)