19/7/25 - Heritage - Bourges - A reader of La Tribune de l’Art informed us of an interesting fact: the statue of Jacques Cœur, power-washed by the Bourges town hall and thus “restored” in violation of all rules and the French Heritage Code (see article), is not even the property of the city. It is on long-term loan from the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), and is part of the collection of the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (FNAC), managed by this institution.
To the legal prohibition against restoring a work of art inscribed as a Historic Monument without authorization must therefore be added – to the already well-filled list of wrongdoings by the City of Bourges – the equally binding legal impossibility of restoring a sculpture it does not own and for which it is merely the custodian, without informing its owner. Needless to say, the CNAP – a public administrative institution whose mission notably includes managing works of art that it either keeps on its premises or places on long-term loan in museums or churches – is, evidently, somewhat more familiar than the Bourges town hall with the proper way to restore a statue.
The CNAP, which we contacted, confirmed that it owns the work. It told us that the sculpture “is the result of a commission awarded to Auguste Préault in 1873 for the City of Bourges. The work (PFH-7306) was inaugurated in 1879 and is inscribed as a Historic Monument” and stated that it “had never been informed in advance of this ’cleaning’.”
It added that it “contacted the City of Bourges and requested, as a first step, the intervention of a restorer to assess the damage and, depending on the diagnosis, to require the restoration or even the relocation of the work to a protected space, if necessary.”
We are awaiting further information, and hope that the monument has not suffered too greatly during this so-called “cleaning.” Let us note that the City of Bourges appears to have, quite definitively, the elected officials it deserves. Indeed, on Facebook, a certain Alain Bouquin saw fit to claim – with a straight face – that “the pressure used for the cleaning was the same as at the outlet of a kitchen tap.” This gentleman displays on his profile a remarkable touching sense of modesty, since it merely states that he lives in Bourges. A quick internet search nonetheless reveals that he is in fact “deputy mayor for Citizenship” – a role that undoubtedly makes him a specialist in sculpture restoration…