Hugo décorator

In the absence of a homeland, he had a house, which he furnished with meticulous frenzy and a heap of eclectic objects. Victor Hugo — the poet, novelist, playwright, politician — was also a decorator. And the most striking proof of this hidden talent is the house he occupied on the island of Guernsey. But did he decorate it to pass the time and fill the void during his exile? If so, did this pastime of a restless genius deserve an exhibition and a book? Undoubtedly. For not only did Hugo do nothing by halves, but he had a passion for decoration long before being banished from France; his Parisian apartments, adorned from floor to ceiling, were already total works of art. Yet, he not only wrote little about this occupation, but also moved frequently — from rue de Vaugirard to rue de La Tour d’Auvergne, and, of course, to place Royale (today’s Place des Vosges), which now houses his museum.

Director of the two house-museums — in Paris and Guernsey — Gérard Audinet undertook painstaking research to attempt to reconstruct the various Hugo interiors, which did not always serve the same function depending on the period. Before exile, the interiors were manifestos: they had to reflect the image of the leader of Romanticism. Works by friends, such as Louis Boulanger and David d’Angers, mingled with the most intriguing objects — here a seventeenth-century Ottoman banner, there an eighteenth-century serpent fountain (ill. 1). Not to mention, of course, the prestigious gifts ostentatiously displayed, such as Sèvres plates hung on the wall: from the Attributes of Small Meals service, they were offered by Charles X, eager to thank the writer for his ode on “Le Sacre” in 1825.
“Enter, oh people! — Sound, bugles, drums, fanfare!
The prince is on the throne; he is great and sacred!
Over the undulating…