The Museum was the edifice which most suffered from the German bombardments. On October 11th, 1914, it was struck by 75 shells. The curator took measures at once to have the roof repaired and protect the collections.
THE BELLE JARDINIÉRE,
near the Museum (Boulevard de la Liberté).
However, the Museum was not proof against German greed. On Saturday, November 17th, two officers, accompanied by military policemen, came to "requisition" the works of art, in the name of the German authorities. After visiting the different rooms, and being unable to obtain the keys of the cabinets, they broke open the latter and took all the medals and miniatures, which they placed in paper bags from a neighbouring grocer's shop. The curator protested the same day, both verbally and in writing, to the Kommandantur and Military Governor.
The miniatures were brought back on November 19th, and the medals on December 3rd, less various antique gold jewels, two miniatures, and two gold medals, which had been "lost."
Later, two well-known German art experts Herr Demmler and Herr Professor Klemen, armed with carefully annotated catalogues, made a general "requisition" comprising: 1,500 drawings (including those by Raphael and Michael Angelo), 420 paintings and 518 other works of art, all of which were packed up, labelled and sent off. The famous "Wax Head" (page [43]) had, however, been hidden away in an underground vault, and replaced by a copy.
In an endeavour to justify their action, the Germans sent out a radiogram on November 4th, 1918, stating that the Museum of Lille had been damaged so seriously as to be unsafe for works of art, and that at the request of the curator, an inventory of the collections had been made and the latter transferred first to Valenciennes and then to the Old Museum in Brussels.
VISIT TO THE MUSEUM
The collections are classed under four distinct heads: paintings, modern sculpture, archeological and lapidary specimens and the Wicar collections.