Welcome to the 1st of the Monthly Museum Musings (MMM), where we’ll linger on lesser known museums (when compared to the Louvre that leaves us pretty much open to any of the more than 150 museums across Paris). MMM will focus predominately on Paris (though at times we’ll stray to other cities’ fine collections) and will be defined by a brief overview of the collection at hand, as well as a quick “In the Neighbourhood?” element to provide suggestions for a stroll one could take before or after your Museum Musing. If you have suggestions of a museum you’d like covered or would like to contribute, we’d love to hear from you!
The Frick Collection in New York, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, London’s Wallace Collection: All of these places were the mansions of wealthy families, now housing their art collections for the public. Paris’s version of this big-home, small-museum type is no less impressive, though perhaps slightly less known on an international scale: The Musée Jacquemart-André.
The couple, Edouard André and his wife Nélie Jacquemart, collected old masters such as Titian, Uccello, Van Dyck and Rubens. Though the quality isn’t quite on par with Frick’s peerless collection, some of the 15th and 16th century Italian paintings are divine. Paintings aside, the house is a piece of art unto itself with a gorgeous aerie, plant-filled interior courtyard with a Tiepolo fresco overlooking the double-spiraled staircase. Downstairs you see Edouard and Nélie’s separate bedrooms – the toilet of which has always fascinated me with its various embroidered furniture (didn’t it get wet with splashes? No matter). Made into a museum in 1913, you can also go for one of the best high teas in one of the prettiest salons in Paris. I work in the neighbourhood and go for a delish mango salad on special occasions when I can go a-missing for a few hours of pretending to be a lady-who-lunches.
A visit to the museum is certainly worthwhile, though the 8th Arrt ‘hood is dry with row after row of Hausmannian façades fencing in the tree-lined boulevards. They’re mostly international law firms and companies or posh residences, impenetrable to tourists and expats alike.
In the neighbourhood?
It’s less than 10 minutes by foot up to Parc Monceau for a stroll where the first parachutist landed in the 18th century. If you have kids Parc Monceau has a pony trail that my toddler’s fascinated by (and counting the minutes till he’s big enough to go for a ride). For now though, he’s content with the adorable Parisian 19th Century swings and picnic green rare to many a Parisian park.From there you could go to the pedestrianised market street, Rue de Levis in the 17th Arrt, for a drink and some fabulous people-watching.
Or if you want a more ‘famous” version of Paris it’s 10 minutes west to the l’Arc de Triomphe, where you feel like you’re at the center of it all. It’s true the expanse of all of the boulevards, the Champs-Elysées in particular, meeting at your feet is something to write (at least a postcard) home about!
What’s on now?
From Zurbaran to Rothko is running from March 3rd to July 10th 2017. Alicia Koplowitz has amassed through Grupo Omega Capital Ω, a collection that reflects her own personal tastes, bringing together numerous masterpieces from some of the world’s greatest artists. The Old and Modern Masters feature heavily in her collection, fostering a dialogue of sorts across the centuries: antique sculptures and paintings by Zurbarán, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Guardi and Goya can be seen alongside paintings and drawings by Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Van Dongen, Modigliani, Schiele, de Staël, Freud, Rothko and Barceló, as well as sculptures by Giacometti, Bourgeois and Richier.
Logistics
Details: 158, boulevard Haussmann 75008 Paris
www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com
Metro: Miromesnil (lines 9, 13), St Philippe du Roule (line 9, closer)
Hours: Open 7 days a week, 10am – 6 pm, Monday till 8:30 pm
Prices: Adults cost 13.50 euros, students 10.50, kids under 7 are free (as of 2017)
