Musée Jacquemart-André
Encyclopedia
Boulevard Haussmann
Boulevard Haussmann, running from the 8th to the 9th arrondissement,is one of the wide tree-lined boulevards created in Paris during the Second French Empire by Baron Haussmann, with enthusiastic support from Napoleon III....
in the 8th arrondissement of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The museum was created from the private home of Édouard André (1833 - 1894) and Nélie Jacquemart
Nélie Jacquemart
Nélie Jacquemart was a French painter.A student of Léon Cogniet Jacquemart was best known for her portraits of famous personalities.In 1872 she met banker Édouard André at a portrait session, whom she eventually married in 1881....
to display the art they collected during their lives.
History
Henri Parent
Henri Parent was a French architect.Son-in-law of the architect Joseph-Antoine Froelicher, Henri Parent restored and transformed several hôtels particuliers in the Faubourg Saint-Germain for high aristocratic families...
, and completed in 1875.
He married a well-known society painter, Nélie Jacquemart, who had painted his portrait 10 years earlier. Every year, the couple would travel in Italy, amassing one of the finest collections of Italian art in France. When Edouard André died, Nélie Jacquemart completed the decoration of the Italian Museum and travelled in the Orient to add more precious works to the collection. Faithful to the plan agreed with her husband, she bequeathed the mansion and its collections to the Institut de France
Institut de France
The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...
as a museum, and it opened to the public in 1913.
Visit
The visit is divided into five major parts:
The State Rooms were designed by the Andrés for their most formal receptions. They reflect their fascination for the French school of painting and 18th century decorative art.
The informal Apartments
The Andrés would receive their business relations in a series of smaller, more informal salons. These were decorated in a refined style, testifying to their talents as collectors.
The winter garden
The Winter Garden is remarkable on more than one count and testifies the artistic skill of the architect Henri Parent
Henri Parent
Henri Parent was a French architect.Son-in-law of the architect Joseph-Antoine Froelicher, Henri Parent restored and transformed several hôtels particuliers in the Faubourg Saint-Germain for high aristocratic families...
, who was seeking to surpass Charles Garnier
Charles Garnier (architect)
Charles Garnier was a French architect, perhaps best known as the architect of the Palais Garnier and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.-Early life:...
, the builder of the then new Opéra Garnier.
The Italian museum
The Sculpture Gallery houses collections of 15th and 16th century Italian sculpture, with masterpieces by Francesco Laurana
Francesco Laurana
Francesco Laurana, also known as Francesco de la Vrana was a Dalmatian-born sculptor and medallist. He is considered as both Croatian and Italian sculptor.-Life and works:...
, Donatello
Donatello
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , also known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence...
, Luca Della Robbia
Luca della Robbia
Luca della Robbia was an Italian sculptor from Florence, noted for his terra-cotta roundels.Luca Della Robbia developed a pottery glaze that made his creations more durable in the outdoors and thus suitable for use on the exterior of buildings. His work is noted for its charm rather than the drama...
and others. The Florentine Gallery is both a place of worship, containing works on religious themes — choir stalls, reredos and funerary monuments — and a picture gallery focusing on the Florentine school, with works by Botticelli, Botticini and Perugino, and Ucello's celebrated St George and the Dragon. The Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
Gallery attests to the Andrés' love of 15th century Venetian artists. Dominated by a coffer
Coffer
A coffer in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault...
ceiling attributed to Mocetto, paintings by Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
, Bellini
Bellini
-People:*Vincenzo Bellini , opera composer*a family of Italian painters:**Jacopo Bellini , father of Gentile and Giovanni**Gentile Bellini **Giovanni Bellini , the most famous of the three...
or Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...
recreate the typical setting of a Venetian Palazzo.
The Private Apartments
Occupying part of the mansion's ground floor, the Andrés' private apartments give the museum the feel of a family home.
Collection
The museum features works by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le BrunÉlisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was a French painter, and is recognized as the most famous female painter of the 18th century. Her style is generally considered Rococo and shows interest in the subject of neoclassical painting...
, Bellini
Bellini
-People:*Vincenzo Bellini , opera composer*a family of Italian painters:**Jacopo Bellini , father of Gentile and Giovanni**Gentile Bellini **Giovanni Bellini , the most famous of the three...
, Botticini, Luca Signorelli
Luca Signorelli
Luca Signorelli was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draughtsman and his use of foreshortening...
, Cima da Conegliano
Cima da Conegliano
Giovanni Battista Cima, also called Cima da Conegliano was an Italian Renaissance painter.-Biography:Giovanni Battista Cima was born at Conegliano, now part of the province of Treviso, in 1459 or 1460...
, Pietro Perugino
Pietro Perugino
Pietro Perugino , born Pietro Vannucci, was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance...
, Neri di Bicci
Neri di Bicci
Neri di Bicci was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. A prolific painter of mainly religious themes, he was active mainly in Florence and in the medium of tempera. His father was Bicci di Lorenzo. His grandfather, Lorenzo di Bicci was also a painter in Florence, a pupil of Spinello...
, Vittore Crivelli, Luca della Robbia
Luca della Robbia
Luca della Robbia was an Italian sculptor from Florence, noted for his terra-cotta roundels.Luca Della Robbia developed a pottery glaze that made his creations more durable in the outdoors and thus suitable for use on the exterior of buildings. His work is noted for its charm rather than the drama...
, Paolo Uccello
Paolo Uccello
Paolo Uccello , born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and a mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his...
, Canaletto
Canaletto
Giovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...
, Jean-Marc Nattier
Jean-Marc Nattier
Jean-Marc Nattier , French painter, was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier , a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois , a miniaturist...
, Alfred Boucher
Alfred Boucher
A French sculptor, Alfred Boucher , mentor to Camille Claudel and friend of Auguste Rodin.Born in Bouy-sur-Ovin , he was the son of a farmhand who became the gardener of the sculptor Chantalle van Zanten, who, after recognizing Boucher's talent, opened his studio to him.He won the Grand Prix du...
, Quentin Massys, Rembrandt, Anthony van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...
, Frans Hals
Frans Hals
Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...
, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo , also known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice...
, Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
, Thomas Lawrence
Thomas Lawrence (painter)
Sir Thomas Lawrence RA FRS was a leading English portrait painter and president of the Royal Academy.Lawrence was a child prodigy. He was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper. At the age of ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his...
, Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
, Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
, Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...
, Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...
, Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
, Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five...
, and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre paintings which depict kitchen maids, children, and domestic activities...
.
In popular culture
The final banquet of The Count of Monte Cristo (2002 film)The Count of Monte Cristo (2002 film)
The Count of Monte Cristo is a 2002 adventure film directed by Kevin Reynolds. The film is the tenth adaptation of the book of the same name by Alexandre Dumas, père and stars Richard Harris, James Caviezel, Dagmara Dominczyk, Guy Pearce, and Luis Guzman...
by Kevin Reynolds, was shot in a replica of the Grand Salon and the Honour Staircase of the Musée Jacquemart-André, but without the dividing wall in between.