20 
LAND &> WATER 
November 7, 1918 
The Treasures of Lille : By G. C. Williamson 
TO art-lovers the town of Lille possessed one 
great attraction. 
Its present-day life was concerned with manu- 
facture. It was a sort of Manchester of France, 
fiax-spinning being its chief industry. 
Its history was interesting. It had been Austrian, it had 
been Spanish. It was besieged in 
1213, taken by Louis XIV in 
1667, and retaken in 1708, so that 
warfare has raged about its walls 
on many occasions ; but the 
visitor to Lille, as a rule, con- 
cerned himself neither with its 
commerce nor history, but direc- 
ted his footsteps to the museum 
to gaze upon a collection of Old 
Master drawings that was hardly 
to be equalled in all Europe. 
^ jIn 1762 there was born in Lille 
Jean Baptiste Wicar, whose name 
will ever be treasured in the place. 
His father, early left an orphan, 
had been educated by the town 
and had built up a small business. 
To him his son was bqund appren- 
tice. 
One day in 1772 father and son 
visited an important house in the 
neighbourhood in which hung 
many paintings. Young Wicar 
was struck with tlieir beauty, and 
while his father was busy he with 
a bit of chalk set to work on the 
floor to copy the pictures about 
him. His father discovered the 
lad absorbed in his work, and was 
horrified at the "mess," as he 
called it, on the parqueterie, but 
M. d'Hespel saw in a moment 
that young Wicar, only ten years 
old, had faithfully copied the 
fine pictures that were about him, and was already an artist. 
He proved himself a good friend to the lad, who had used 
his parquet as a drawing-board, the magistrates of Lille 
accepted his advice, and from that moment young Wicar 
LA TETE DE CIRE 
Bequeathed to Lille by Jean Baptiste Wicar 
Studied art, and not cabinet-making. At sixteen he was to Lille when peace c^mes. 
copying pictures ; at nineteen working in David's studio, and 
later on was his master's companion in a journey to Italy. 
Under the republic Wicar became a man of note, and had 
charge of the archa:ological section of the museum, then in 
course of formation. 
Meantime, he had become a collector of Old Master draw- 
ings. He had never forgotten 
Lille, and regarded it with deep 
affection. Many gifts he made to 
his birthplace ; finally, by his last 
will, dated January 28th, 1834, 
bequeathed to it -his collection of 
works of art, and so there came to 
this manufacturing town the Wicar 
collection of drawings ; sculpture ; 
books ; bronzes ; enamels ; terra 
cotta, wax and marble figures ; 
cartoons and pictures that made 
it famous throughout Europe. 
When we add that the bequest 
contained over 1,000 fine draw- 
ings, irrespective of some 700 in 
albums, and that there is hardly 
a name in art that is not repre- 
sented, we have shown how great 
the collection was. 
The chef d'auvre of the museum 
was the famous Tete de Cire 
Wicar bought in Italy. It belongs 
certainly to the time of the 
Renaissance. 
It has been attributed to 
Raphael and to Leonardo, and 
there is in Vienna a drawing by 
Santi which closely resembles it. 
Orsino Benintendi was pro- 
bal4y, however, responsible for 
this exquisite figure. He was a 
pupil of Verrocchio, and a cele- 
brated modeller in wax. It is 
quite possible he may have made it 
from a drawing by some other artist, but there seems to be 
no other man of the period so likely to have modelled it as 
Benintendi. 
It and the precious drawings must certainly be returned 
THE SORCERESS 
From the painting l>y Franz Hals in tlie Lille Museum 
MARSHAL MOLITOR JON HIS2.DEATH-BED 
From the painting by Pils'in the Lille Museum. 
