Cambrai Museum à Anneux dans le Nord

Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

Cambrai Museum originated in the French Revolution, when the law of 2 November 1789 placed the property of the clergy at the disposal of the Nation. More than two thousand art objects (paintings, sculptures, furniture) from the churches and religious establishments in Cambrai are then stored in the Saint-Aubert Abbey. Under the Empire, these works, which were considered unremovable, were scattered in various municipal buildings, causing indignation of the Cambrai Emulation Society.

After decades of demands, the municipality finally established a museum in 1847, installed in a hall of the city hall. The collections are enriched by donations, acquisitions at Salons, and state deposits, such as Greek and Etruscan ceramics from the Campana collection in 1863. In 1866, the museum moved to the former hospital Saint-Julien, marking its structure with a curator and a dedicated budget. The estuary continues with the legacy of the Hôtel de Francqueville in 1893, allowing a solemn inauguration and the publication of a first catalogue.

World War I marked a tragic turning point: in 1914, the curator Émile Mussault hid the works in the cellars, but in 1917 the German authorities ordered their transfer to Valenciennes and then to Brussels in 1918. After the Armistice, the return of the collections reveals more than 200 works missing or destroyed. Despite the damage, the museum reopened partially in 1924, before a complete restoration in 1933 under the direction of Georges Maroniez, which favoured award-winning local artists at the Salon.

The Second World War led to a further evacuation of the collections, which only returned to the Hôtel de Francqueville in 1946. The following decades saw a relative decline, until the arrival in 1987 of Françoise Magny, who undertook a complete inventory and major renovation. The museum, reopened in 1994 after four years of work, modernises with a body-oriented and Cambresian art journey, completed in 2005 by a collection of geometric abstraction.

Today, the museum highlights various departments: archaeology (Prehistory, Antiquity, Merovingian period), local heritage (Romanesque sculptures, remains of the destroyed cathedral), and fine arts from the 17th to the 20th century. The Hotel de Francqueville, built in 1719-1720 and renovated in 1994, combines classical architecture with modern elements, including vaulted cellars dedicated to the osteo-archaeology and foreign antiques.

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