Two exhibitions of drawings in Paris and Sèvres

1. Eugène Lami (1800-1890)
Project for the Ceiling of the Dance Hall, Château de Boulogne-sur-Seine ?, c. 1855
Graphite, pen, brown ink and gouache on wove paper - 34.5 x 56 cm
Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs
Photo: Jean Tholance

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28/3/23 - Hangings - Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs and Sèvres, Musée national de Céramique - Following in the footsteps of the dynamic Salon du Dessin, which attracts a number of foreign collectors and curators to the French capital, several museums are also offering exhibitions or displays. While the Jean Bonna cabinet at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Graphic Arts department of the Louvre Museum are surprisingly absent this year, drawings lovers can take comfort in the Fondation Custodia and the graphic arts cabinet of the Musée Condé at the Château de Chantilly (articles to come). For its part, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs has taken an initiative that should be commended by organising a delightful display of its sheets (ill. 1) by Eugène Lami, even if it is not accompanied by any publication and lasts less than three weeks. The fine dynamism of the conservation teams at this institution is regularly highlighted in La Tribune de l’Art, especially when it comes to graphic works: we remember the Prud’hon display in the spring of 2022 (see the news item of 19/5/22) as well as the 1900 drawings exhibited in the autumn (see the article). Recently enriched with an attractive allegory of Fashion (see the news item of 2/3/23) drawn by Esprit-Antoine Gibelin in 1780 and a tabernacle project executed in 1666 (see the news item of 29/3/23), the collections have also been enhanced in recent months by two new drawings by Lami.

2. Eugène Lami (1800-1890)
A Reunion between the Rothschilds and the Pereires, c. 1850-1854
Graphite and gouache on wove paper - 24.4 x 36.7 cm
Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs
Photo: Galerie Didier Aaron

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Spotted at the Galerie Didier Aaron’s stand at the Salon du Dessin in May 2022, the first of these (ill. 2) was acquired thanks to the patronage of the Friends of the Decorative Arts. This sheet is both a virtuoso gouache genre scene and a precious document on fashion and interiors of the Second Empire, as described by Audrey Gay-Mazuel, the curator in charge of the 19th century and Art Nouveau collections. A favourite decorator of James de Rothschild, Eugène Lami worked for the family throughout the second half of his life, having faithfully served the Orléans, whom he followed into exile after the 1848 revolution. Lami began with the château of Boulogne-sur-Seine before continuing his work at the château of Ferrières, but members of a rival family, the Pereires, can be recognised here. Also active in banking and real estate, they were great builders and left their name to a boulevard, a metro station and a square in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. Thanks to the artist’s specialist, Caroline Imbert, the Aaron Gallery and the museum’s staff were able to identify some of the protagonists in this social composition: on the far left, Baron Haussmann can be seen talking to Charles Nathan Haas, a friend of Lami’s and a power broker for the Rothschilds, while Alphonse de Rothschild is talking to Eugène Pereire while pointing to the latter’s father, Isaac Pereire, on the far right of the drawing. The exact meaning of the scene still eludes us, as does the identity of the lady wearing a large crinoline, who occupies the centre of the sheet.

3. Eugene Lami (1800-1890)
View of the Tomb of Doge Giovanni Pesaro in the Church of the Frari in Venice, 1860
Graphite, pen and brown ink, watercolour and gouache - 29 x 23 cm
Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs
Photo: Alexandre Lafore

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Brutally deceased in July 2022, Caroline Imbert will not have known this Lami hanging decided a few weeks earlier, at the time of the Salon du Dessin, but this presentation is logically dedicated to her. Laure and Bruno Desmarest also wished to pay tribute to her in early 2023 by offering the museum a new drawing (ill. 3) testifying to her activity in the service of the Rothschilds. This view of the tomb of Doge Giovanni Pesaro in the Church of the Frari in Venice was drawn while the artist was travelling there with Betty de Rothschild to study the Italian decorative arts and to seek inspiration for the construction of the Château de Ferrières. Designed by Baldassare Longhena between 1665 and 1669, the famous funerary monument of the Doge is enthroned in the middle of the left-hand aisle of the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, and clearly inspired both the artist and his patrons for the great hall of Ferrières. Lami admirably remembered the imposing tribune supported by powerful atlatls for this piece, which was also inspired by the Staircase of the Ambassadors in the Château de Versailles. This grand salon in the Italian style, on two levels, was destined to become the main reception area of the most beautiful of the French "châteaux Rothschild". Bathed in zenithal light, the prestigious collections assembled by the "Grand Baron" had found an ideal setting, documented by numerous other drawings by Eugène Lami such as this general view presented at the Bibliothèque nationale in 2012-2013 (see article) or this side view sold at Christie’s in Paris in October 2010.

4. Eugène Lami (1800-1890)
Decoration Project for the Great Hall of the Château de Ferrières, c. 1860
Graphite, watercolour and gouache on laid paper - 37 x 66 cm (detail)
Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs
Photo: Alexandre Lafore

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The great hall of the Château de Ferrières is found in a large watercolour (ill. 4) donated to the Musée des Arts décoratifs in 1891 by Count Étienne de Ganay. A true portrait of the interior, it wonderfully conveys the abundance of this room where rich collections of silverware, ceramics, ancient weapons and mounted hard stones are piled up on the low bookcases. As Mathieu Deldicque wrote in the catalogue of the Eugène Lami exhibition at the Château de Chantilly, where the drawing was loaned in spring 2019, the great hall owes as much to the baroque villas of Italy as to the British country houses. The display at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs borrows its title - "The First Modern Decorator" - from one of the essays in the catalogue that accompanied the reopening of the d’Aumale couple’s small flats after restoration, entirely composed by Eugène Lami (see news item), who is also at home at the Musée Condé, which regularly acquires works by his hand on the market (see news item of 12/3/20) or even by rediscovering them in its reserves (see news item of 10/5/21). For its part, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is the other conservatory for Lami’s drawings: most of the thirty or so sheets kept in the Marsan wing were acquired in 1890, just before the artist’s death. Well-known, often published and even sometimes shown [1], these drawings have just been entrusted to the restorer Anaïs Diez thanks to the patronage of Christelle Téa.

5. View of the display of Eugène Lami’s drawings at the Musée des Arts décoratifs
Photo: Christophe Dellière

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Orchestrated by two dynamic curators, Bénédicte Gady and Audrey Gay-Mazuel, this exhibition (ill. 5) will unfortunately close this weekend due to the well-known constraints of these museum spaces, but is a fine tribute to these "interior portraits" as well as to their specialist, the late Caroline Imbert, whose research is being continued by the young dealer Louis Barrand, as well as the catalogue raisonné of Eugène Lami.

6. Vue de la présentation des nouvelles acquisitions graphiques du Musée national de Céramique
Photo : Alexandre Lafore

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7. The drawing by Jean-Charles Develly presented next to the plate of the Industrial Arts
Photo: Alexandre Lafore

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Let us now cross the Seine to the Musée national de Céramique de Sèvres, which also took advantage of the Semaine du dessin to inaugurate a small exhibition-dossier presenting its latest graphic acquisitions for two months. Although the space in the "newsroom" (ill. 6) is somewhat unattractive, it is still an opportunity to admire some pretty drawings familiar to La Tribune de l’Art readers! We remember the large gouache watercolour by Jean-Baptiste Isabey preparing an unfinished project by Alexandre Brongniart, pr-empted at the Hôtel Drouot in May 2022 (see the news item of 1/6/22) or the drawing by Jean-Charles Develly intended for the plate of the Industrial Arts department representing the workshop of the sculptors and upholsterers of the Manufacture (ill. 7), joined by the beautiful allegorical drawing by Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard representing the marriage of Emperor Napoleon to Marie-Louise of Austria (see news item of 16/11/22). Thanks to Clotilde Sablon du Corail, formerly in charge of the documentary collections at Sèvres and now a student curator, these fine acquisitions are beautifully presented and contextualised: let us fervently hope that the pleasing dynamic of the past year can be continued over the coming months while forming the wish to be able to one day benefit from a real graphic arts cabinet devoted to the little-known treasures of the rich collections of the Musée national de Céramique de Sèvres.