Musée de la Vie Romantique

The Musée de la Vie romantique (The Museum of Romantic Life, or Museum of the Romantics) stands at the foot of Montmartre hill in the IXe arrondissement, 16 rue Chaptal, Paris, France in a 1830 hôtel particulier facing two twin-studios, a greenhouse, a small garden, and a paved courtyard. The museum is open daily except Monday. Permanent collections are free. An admission fee is charged for temporary exhibitions. The nearest métro stations are Pigalle, Blanche, Saint-Georges, and Liège.

Contents

The Property

The main pavilion, built in 1830, was the Paris base of the Dutch-born painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858), one of the prominent artists of the time, close to King Louis-Philippe and his family. For decades, Scheffer and his daughter hosted Friday-evening salons, among the most famous in La Nouvelle Athènes. George Sand (1804-1876) used to come as a neighbour with Frederic Chopin, meeting Eugène Delacroix, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Alphonse de Lamartine, and singer Pauline Viardot. Later in the century, Charles Dickens, Ivan Turgueniev, and Charles Gounod attended regularly.

The Museum

The property remained by descent in private hands till 1982 when it became a museum, under the name of "Musée Renan-Scheffer". It is now one of the City of Paris' three literary museums, along with the Maison de Balzac and the Maison de Victor Hugo. After an extensive renovation conducted by Jacques Garcia under the direction of Anne-Marie de Brem, it reopened in 1987 as "Musée de la Vie romantique". Daniel Marchesseau, conservateur général du Patrimoine, has been appointed director in november 1998. Since then, he has developped an ambitious program of exhibitions and acquisitions. Attendance has widely grown, from 18.000 visitors a year (1998) to 145.000 in 2010.

The Collections

The Museum displays on the first floor numerous mementos of most notorious romantic character and writer George Sand, including family portraits, household possessions, pieces of jewelry and memorabilia among which plaster casts of the writer's sensuous right arm and Chopin's delicate left hand, plus a number of her own unique and rare watercolours called "dendrites".

On the second floor, one can admire a number of Romantic canvases, sculptures and objets d'art . Paintings by Ary Scheffer include portraits of Pauline Viardot, Queen Marie-Amélie, Princesse de Joinville, Princesse Marie d'Orléans, as well as oils of The Giaour (after Lord Byron), Faust and Marguerite, Effie and Jeanie Deans after The Heart of Midlothian by Walter Scott. Works by his contemporaries include François Bouchot (Maria Malibran), François Debon, Charles Durupt, Louis Hersent, Redouté, Roqueplan. Sculptures are by Barre, Théophile Bra, Auguste Clésinger, Dantan, David d'Angers, Jean-Jacques Feuchère, François-Désiré Froment-Meurice, James Pradier ... The Museum also displays several portraits and material linked to the famous scholar and writer Ernest Renan who had married Ary Scheffer's niece.

Exhibitions and catalogues

1984

1985

1986

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

See also

External links