Anybody in Paris wishing to eat and drink beneath a ceiling by Giambattista Tiepolo, surrounded by priceless 18th-century tapestries from Brussels depicting the story of Achilles, can accomplish that on the Musée Jacquemart-André from 6 September.
Situtated within the eighth arrondissement, at 158 Boulevard Haussmann, the previous non-public mansion has been closed for a 12 months whereas present process a spectacular renovation. It reopens this month.
“We have now spent €6.5m and carried out intensive work,” explains the museum’s curator, Pierre Curie. “However relaxation assured, it is vitally a lot the identical museum. I’m, in spite of everything, a conservateur,” he continues, utilizing the French title.
The spare-no-expense architect of the Musée Jacquemart-André was decided to outperform his arch-rival’s lately commissioned Paris opera home© Culturespaces, Nicolas Héron
Some of the gorgeous private-house museums in Paris, the property was initially constructed for the rich banker Edouard André between 1869 and 1875. As a challenge by which no expense was spared, it additionally supplied a possibility for its architect, Henri Mother or father, to get again at his rival, Charles Garnier, who had simply gained the fee to create the town’s new opera home. Mother or father set about making a state-of-the-art dwelling with areas for entertaining. The mansion integrated hydraulic partition partitions that would rise and fall on demand, and a double helix staircase that is among the most interesting of its form.
The staircase, itself a triumph of engineering, is completed with fake marble and gold ornament, whose crowning contact, put in in 1893, was a sequence of Tiepolo frescoes for its stairwell and ceiling. They had been initially made for Villa Contarini within the Veneto and introduced again to Paris by André, together with the ceiling for the eating room. The frescoes, which present Henri III coming back from Poland to succeed to the French throne, had been restored in 1998.
André (1833-94) started gathering artwork as a younger man. “He favored French artwork from the 18th century—Fragonard, Boucher—in addition to ornamental arts and tapestries,” Curie says. “However he developed his tastes as soon as he married Nélie Jacquemart in 1872.”
Grand Tour trophies
Jacquemart was a profitable portrait painter who had proven on the Paris Salon from the age of twenty-two and had a style for the Italian Renaissance. The couple travelled extensively in Italy and bought footage and sculptures in Milan and Rome. The spoils of their excursions may be seen all through the home, together with masterpieces reminiscent of Paolo Uccello’s Saint George and the Dragon (1430-35) and works by Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini alongside sculptures by Donatello.
Additionally they appeared extra extensively. Within the assortment are unbelievable works by Rembrandt: Supper at Emmaus (round 1629), Portait of Princess Amalia van Solms (1632) and Portrait of Dr. Arnold Tholinx (1656) in addition to work by Flemish masters.
André first met Jacquemart when she was commissioned to color his portrait in 1862. “She was a naturalist painter,” Curie says. “She labored from images and made preparatory drawings.”
They married ten years later, inspired by André’s household. André was a infamous rake, racked by syphilis and recognized for maintaining firm with prostitutes. Jacquemart was seen as a steadying affect, though it’s unlikely that the wedding was ever consummated.
The museum was solely open for a couple of weeks a 12 months once I arrived, and several other elements wanted lots of work
Curie got here to the museum in 2016, attracted by its Italian and French works. “It was solely open for a couple of weeks a 12 months then,” he says. “However I knew a number of elements of the museum wanted lots of work.”
When the ornamental ceiling of the smoking room started to fall away, the choice was lastly made to take issues in hand. “It was changing into harmful,” Curie says. Since September 2023, the constructing has been stuffed with restorers. “Generally 20 or extra individuals a day, engaged on their extremely specialised duties,” he says. The funds got here from the museum’s impartial proprietor, the Institut de France, by way of the Jacquemart André Basis.
Hue constancy
Now the partitions of the smoking room, which had been lined in a inexperienced silk, have been reupholstered in claret-coloured cloth—a fire-resistant artificial that imitates silk satin. The precise shade was matched from a 1913 color {photograph}. “We scanned it and managed to breed it,” Curie says. Within the mansion’s former eating room, the partitions have been restored to their authentic mild grey-green, found beneath coat after coat of paint.
The museum’s momentary exhibition areas invariably host shows of historic Italian artwork, consistent with the unique house owners’ predilections. Fittingly, the reopening present will characteristic Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces from the Galleria Borghese in Rome, together with Titian’s Venus Blindfolding Cupid (round 1565) and Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit (round 1595)—works that are hardly ever loaned outdoors of Italy.
