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 personal mansion has been closed for a 12 months whereas present process a spectacular renovation. It reopens this month.
“Now we have spent €6.5m and carried out in depth work,” explains the museum’s curator, Pierre Curie. “However relaxation assured, it is extremely a lot the identical museum. I’m, in any case, 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 not too long ago 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 venture through which no expense was spared, it additionally supplied a chance for its architect, Henri Mum or dad, to get again at his rival, Charles Garnier, who had simply gained the fee to create the town’s new opera home. Mum or dad set about making a state-of-the-art residence with areas for entertaining. The mansion included hydraulic partition partitions that would rise and fall on demand, and a double helix staircase that is likely one of 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 have 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 getting back from Poland to succeed to the French throne, have been restored in 1998.
André (1833-94) started amassing artwork as a younger man. “He preferred 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 could be seen all through the home, together with masterpieces comparable to Paolo Uccello’s Saint George and the Dragon (1430-35) and works by Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini alongside sculptures by Donatello.
Additionally they seemed extra extensively. Within the assortment are unimaginable 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 pictures and made preparatory drawings.”
They married ten years later, inspired by André’s household. André was a infamous rake, racked by syphilis and identified for protecting 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 just a few weeks a 12 months once I arrived, and several other components wanted lots of work
Curie got here to the museum in 2016, attracted by its Italian and French works. “It was solely open for just a few weeks a 12 months then,” he says. “However I knew a number of components 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 folks a day, engaged on their extremely specialised duties,” he says. The funds got here from the museum’s impartial proprietor, the Institut de France, through the Jacquemart André Basis.
Hue constancy
Now the partitions of the smoking room, which have been coated 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 gentle grey-green, found beneath coat after coat of paint.
The museum’s short-term exhibition areas invariably host shows of historic Italian artwork, in step with the unique homeowners’ 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 not often loaned outdoors of Italy.
