Musée du Mont-de-Piété de Bergues

About

The Musée du Mont-de-Piété is a museum created in 1953 in Bergues in the North. It is sheltered by the former Piété Mount erected in 1630 on the plans of Wenceslas Cobergher. It preserves an important collection of paintings and drawings from the 16th to the 19th century, mainly northern schools as well as a collection of natural history.

History: Like many French museums, the Musée du Mont-de-Piété originated in the Revolution. The seizures carried out then in the religious houses of the city, including the very rich abbey of Saint-Winoc, and the surrounding areas as well as in private homes allow to gather nearly 450 paintings. This artistic deposit, located in a building dependent on the former Jesuit college, is entrusted to the custody of a certain J. Delorge, declaring himself director of the Bergues Academy. In 1791, he drew up a first inventory of the paintings from the Abbey of Saint-Winoc, which showed 347 numbers, including Georges de La Tour's painting catalogued under the name of Urbain C rasse (sic). Delorge also makes a first summary "health check" of the collections, indicating that "painting paintings are usually in a very...