Paris1972-Versailles2003

Well here I go again, been at home makes you think about where you have been and take a closer look at my blog. Well as usual i write on the many places visited and as always never quite tell all! Nantes is a city that is like one of my homes, not only for the visits with the family and friends that live there but on my business trips as well; needless to say been all over. However, there is so much beautiful things to write about my belle France that oh well here is another, the Museum of Arts of Nantes.

The Nantes Museum of Arts ( I have it mentioned as the former name Nantes Museum of Fine Arts), was created, like fourteen other provincial museums, by consular decree of September 1, 1801. It is one of the largest museums in the region. The Musée d ‘arts de Nantes is located in the heart of the city center, a stone’s throw from the Cathedral, the Jardin des Plantes and the SNCF train station.

Founded under the Consulate, the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts receives works purchased by the State and deposits from the Central Museum (you know it as the Louvre Museum). From the beginning of the 19C, it took an important place in French public collections thanks to the purchase by the City of Nantes of the collection of the brothers Pierre and François Cacault. This fund, comprising major works, is subsequently supplemented by several other direct or testamentary donations, and by a purchasing policy supported by the Society of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts in Nantes. Today, there is a collection of works from the Pays de Loire Regional Contemporary Art Fund and the Pompidou Center added to this rich collection.

The Arts Museum benefited in 1804 and in 1809 from the dispatch by the State of 43 paintings taken from the reserves of the Central Museum. These works come from the old royal collection, churches and convents of Paris or even revolutionary and Napoleonic conquests (nationalisations from the French revolution). But it was the purchase of the Cacault brothers’ collection by the city in 1810 that gave the Nantes Arts museum all its richness and scope. It was not until 1830 that the collections were presented to the public on the second floor of the covered market located rue de Feltre on the site of the old Marché de Feltre. In 1891, the city decided to build a building specially designed to preserve them and present them to the public in good conditions. A quadrangular plot near the school and the Jardin des Plantes was chosen to accommodate the future Palais des Beaux-Arts. The plan is organized around a patio covered with a glass roof. A double circuit of galleries and rooms surrounds it on two levels. You reach the upper level by a monumental double flight staircase decorated with a fresco by Hippolyte Berteaux entitled Laborious Brittany and an arched vestibule. The rooms on the ground floor are lit by large windows, those upstairs benefit from modern overhead lighting made possible by the metal frame of the whole.

Until 1985, the building also housed within it, and this since 1900, most of the funds of the city’s municipal library, before these were finally installed in the new media library Jacques-Demy located on the Quai de la Fosse. In 2011, the Arts Museum closed its doors for an initially planned duration of two years maximum, in order to carry out important enlargement works which must bring its surface to 17,000 m2 (against 11,400 m2 at the time) and allowing it to include the chapel of the Oratory that served as a place of temporary exhibitions for the museum located nearby, by constructing new buildings. However, the discovery of important water leaks at the site of the future expansion delayed the construction site, forcing the architects to modify their plans, provided for a reopening in two phases: 2016 for the extension and 2018 for the historic building. The reopening of the Arts Museum finally took place on June 23, 2017 for all of the exhibition spaces. The cour Jules-Dupré courtyard is a paved road that connects rue Georges-Clemenceau to rue Gambetta along the west side of the museum. Its access is, from the start, limited by grids located at each end, to allow exclusive use by the museum.

The collections briefly explained.

One of the original features of the collection of ancient art is the relative importance of the collection of Italian primitives, coming mainly from the collection of diplomat François Cacault created from 1785 to 1803, at a time when these works were usually little appreciated by amateurs. The 17C was the period when the richness of the museum’s collection was best expressed. The Italian school remains the most important, with an exceptional set of works of Caravaggio inspiration, illustrating the taste of the Cacault brothers for this painting of a powerful realism. The French Grand Siècle is also well represented. In the field of religious painting, almost all the main trends of the first part of the century are illustrated. Flemish and Dutch schools are well illustrated. The collections of the 18C, less developed, nevertheless keep rare works. Due to the presence of a rich old collection finally presented to the public from 1830, the town decided in 1838 to acquire only contemporary art. The choices fall on the famous artists who exhibit in Nantes after the Parisian Salon. French painting from the 1830s and 1850s enters the museum with two coherent sets of artists representative of the taste of the romantic era. The museum also benefits from numerous State deposits chosen from the acquisitions made at the end of the Official Salons in Paris. In recent years, the collection has been enriched with important works. The main movements of modern art 20C are represented in the collections. The museum’s contemporary collection 21C has been enriched since 2003 by numerous deposits of works from the National Fund for Contemporary Art and new acquisitions. The Arts Museum brings together around 13,500 works on paper such as engravings, drawings and photographs or fabric, from the 15C to the 21C. The 64 albums of the Cacault brothers contain 7,500 old engravings. For the 19C, the cabinet has 3,000 drawings and prints. Modern art is also represented by 3,000 drawings and prints while for contemporary art, there are 350 drawings and as many photographs.

The Arts Museum of Nantes in French: Arts Museum of Nantes in French

The tourist office of Nantes on the Arts Museum in English: Tourist office of Nantes on the Arts Museum

This is a magnificent charming area of Nantes to even walks and see the wonderful architecture of buildings all around you, not to miss the Arts Museum of Nantes. Hope you enjoy the brief tour.

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all!!!

Well here I go again, been at home makes you think about where you have been and take a closer look at my blog. Well as usual i write on the many places visited and as always never quite tell all! Nantes is a city that is like one of my homes, not only for the visits with the family and friends that live there but on my business trips as well; needless to say been all over. However, there is so much beautiful things to write about my belle France that oh well here is another, the Dobrée museum of Nantes.

I have visited the very nice and rich Dobrée museum with works from the middle ages to the 20C showing a large selection of archeological objects going from the 1C just to the Carolingian period as well as housing the box of where it was place the heart of Anne de Bretagne (duchess of Brittany, and queen of France). The Musée Dobrée belongs to the Loire-Atlantique departmental council since 1895. It is located in the city center of Nantes, in the Graslin district, (see post on theater here)  and the Cours Cambronne.

The Thomas Dobrée museum opened its doors to the public for the first time on January 8, 1899 in Nantes. It assembled the collections of two museums set up to perpetuate important collections by entrusting them to a public authority. The departmental museum of Archeology proceeds from the donation to the Loire Atlantique Department, in 1860, of the collections then collected by the Archaeological and Historical Society of Nantes and Loire-Inférieur, founded in 1845, whose head office is still located at the manor of the Touche, in Nantes. The Thomas Dobrée museum results from the donation and the legacy made in 1894 by Thomas II Dobrée , Protestant shipowner and merchant born of a Norman family who fled the wars of religion in Guernsey , become renter and collector , passionate about the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In 1862, Thomas Dobrée acquired the enclosure of the Episcopal manor of La Touche , also called Jean V manor 15-to 19C. On this plot, he built his Romanesque house between 1862 and 1898 to house and present his collection, a private residence entrusted to the Loire Atlantique Department to make it the Thomas Dobrée museum.

To the existing buildings, the Manoir de la Touche, the Dobrée palace 19C and the gardener’s house 19C, were added. In 1972-1973, a third building, the Voltaire building, which housed the conservation, documentation, permanent exhibition of regional archaeology, the auditorium, underground galleries and some reserves. The buildings of the Dobrée palace and the Manoir de la Touche offer a strong and structuring architecture in a district of Nantes rich in heritage and historical monuments. Indeed great walking area!

The 10 departments that the Dobrée museum is divided are the National archaeology, Mediterranean archaeology; Extra-European arts; Numismatics and sigillography; Fine arts and works of art; Sculptures; Graphic arts; Autographs and archives; Manuscripts, incunabula and rare editions and Military archaeology.

During the night of April 13 to 14, 2018, the museum was the victim of the break-in   and the Anne of Brittany’s heart case was stolen. On April 21, 2018, the reliquary as well as the other stolen objects were found by the police in the Saint-Nazaire region . Restored to the Dobrée museum in September 2018, the jewel case of Anne de Bretagne’s heart will once again be exposed to the public in 2022. While the museum itself undergoing renovation, the new museum will open its doors in 2021.

It is wonderfully done architectural marvel ,in fact walking to it was seen more like a palace than a museum really very distinct Nantaise building style too.  Most of the information above taken from the Grand Heritage of the Loire Atlantique museums which is given here in English: Grand Patrimoine Loire Atlantique on the Musée Dobrée

The Nantes tourist office has more on the Dobrée museum in English: Tourist office of Nantes on the Dobrée Museum

This is a magnificent charming area of Nantes to even walks and see the wonderful architecture of buildings all around you, not to miss the Dobrée museum. Hope you enjoy the brief tour.

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all!!!

Well here I go again, been at home makes you think about where you have been and take a closer look at my blog. Well as usual i write on the many places visited and as always never quite tell all! Nantes is a city that is like one of my homes, not only for the visits with the family and friends that live there but on my business trips as well; needless to say been all over. However, there is so much beautiful things to write about my belle France that oh well here is another, the Natural History Museum of Nantes.

The Nantes Natural History Museum  was first devoted to natural history in a private office created in 1799 by François-René Dubuisson, a pharmacist, lover of natural history. This office is then located rue Caylus name of the current rue Saint-Jean during the French revolution. These collections were bought by the town in 1806 and installed in the premises of the old school of surgery of Saint-Côme, belonging to the city, and located rue du Port-Communeau; the current rue Léon-Blum. The museum, inaugurated on August 15, 1810, then presents collections of geology, mineralogy and botany. François-René Dubuisson remaining conservative until his death in 1836. From 1836 to 1863, Dubuisson’s successor was Frédéric Cailliaud who added a collection of natural sciences.

In 1838, the idea of assigning the old mint hotel on rue Voltaire to the installation of collections was mentioned. Located on the hillside a little west of Place Graslin, the building has indeed been unused since the abandonment of the monetary strike in the city, but this possibility is ruled out, the hotel will successively house the courthouse, a school of science and a business school. It is then envisaged the construction of a room at the top of the jardin des plants, then later in the extension of the Cours Cambronne. Finally, they came back to the initial project since it was decided to build new buildings on Place de la Monnaie, backed by the old Hôtel de la Monnaie built between 1821 and 1826. The foundation stone of the building was laid in 1868, the museum began to be laid out in 1872 and was inaugurated on August 19, 1875, during the congress of the French association for the advancement of science. The Natural History Museum was then one of the first to be installed in a building specially built for it. Subsequently, an extension was carried out on the adjacent building of the old Mint. A vivarium was created there in 1955 to display live animals.

In 1970, the departure of the Nantes business school which, since its creation in 1900, occupied part of the premises of the former Hôtel de la Monnaie, will finally allow the museum, whose expansion had then become essential, to integrate the building by incorporating it into its own premises. The old school classrooms become exhibition rooms dedicated to prehistory and paleontology, while the amphitheater is transformed into a conference room. Visitors now enter through the entrance on rue Voltaire, formerly reserved for the business school. After ten years of enlargement work, the museum thus restructured was inaugurated on March 5, 1980.

The first floor zoology gallery presents the phylogenetic classification of vertebrates. Among the remarkable specimens, a whale skeleton over 18 meters long. This large cetacean was rammed in 1991 by the LNG tanker “Edouard LD” from Algeria, and its skeleton recovered in Donges near the LNG terminal at Montoir-de-Bretagne thanks to a collaboration with the National Veterinary School of Nantes which had prepared for four years in its Anatomy Unit.

The museums of Nantes metropole on the Natural History Museum in French: Museums of Nantes metropole on the Natural History Museum

The tourist office of Nantes on the Natural History Museum in English: Tourist office of Nantes on the Natural History Museum

This is a magnificent charming area of Nantes to even walks and see the wonderful architecture of buildings all around you, not to miss the Natural History Museum. Hope you enjoy the brief tour.

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all!!!