On Christmas Eve 1862, still largely unknown, Gustave Moreau wrote himself a note wondering what would become of his work after his death. He spent the rest of his life answering it. The house at 14 rue de La Rochefoucauld, in the Nouvelle Athènes below Montmartre, was acquired in 1852; Moreau lived there with his parents and, after their deaths, alone, painting Salomé, Orpheus, Jupiter and Semele, and a great many pictures he never finished and never showed.
In April 1895, at almost seventy, he asked the architect Albert Lafon to turn the family house into a museum. The upper floors were opened up into two vast studios lit from the north by tall glazed walls, joined by a spiral staircase. Below, the old apartment became what he called a small sentimental museum: family portraits, furniture, and works given by friends such as Chassériau, Fromentin and Degas. Cabinets with pivoting frames, built into the rooms, let thousands of drawings be leafed through like the pages of a book.
His will, dated 10 September 1897, left the house and everything in it to the State and charged his old friend Henri Rupp with seeing the project through. Moreau died on 18 April 1898. The State accepted the bequest in 1902, and the museum opened in 1903, hung as the painter had wanted. Its first curator was his favourite pupil, Georges Rouault, who had studied under him at the École des Beaux-Arts alongside Matisse.
Little has been changed since. That is the point. The studios are crowded floor to ceiling, the paintings frame to frame, the effect deliberately overwhelming, the way a nineteenth-century artist saw his own work. The surrealists, André Breton above all, came to revere the place. It is also listed among the Maisons des Illustres, the national label for the houses of notable figures.
What to look for
- The spiral staircase between the two studios, Lafon’s design of 1895.
- The hinged display panels and cabinets of drawings that you open yourself.
- The first-floor apartment, the ‘small sentimental museum’ of family portraits and friends’ gifts.
- Unfinished canvases beside finished ones, sometimes the same subject at different stages.
Timeline
- 1852The house at 14 rue de La Rochefoucauld is acquired
- 1862Moreau’s note of 24 December on the fate of his work
- 1895Albert Lafon converts the house into a museum with two studios
- 1897Will of 10 September leaves everything to the State
- 1898Death of Gustave Moreau, 18 April
- 1903The museum opens; Georges Rouault is its first curator
Plaques within 250 m
- 9 Rue De La Tour Des Dames · 90 m
TALMA / NE À PARIS / LE 15 JANVIER 1763 / EST MORT / DANS CETTE MAISON / LE 19 OCTOBRE 1826
- · 100 m
FREDERIC CHOPIN / HABITA CETTE MAISON / de 1842 a 1849
- 20 Rue Jean Baptiste Pigalle · 130 m
Ici s'élevaient / les pavillons qu'habitèrent / George SAND & Frédéric CHOPIN / de 1839 à 1842
- 14 Rue D Aumale · 140 m
FRANÇOIS MIGNET / HISTORIEN / NÉ À AIX EN PROCENCE / LE 8 MAI 1796 / EST MORT / DANS CETTE MAISON / LE 24 MARS 1884
- 5 Square D'orleans · 150 m
GEORGE SAND / HABITA / LE 1ER ÉTAGE DE CETTE MAISON / DE 1842 À 1847 / LA SOCIÉTÉ / (LES AMIS DE GEORGE SAND)
- 33 Rue La Bruyere · 160 m
"En 1888 / BONNARD, DENIS et VUILLARD / ont fondé dans cette maison / le Groupe des Nabis."
- 26 Rue La Bruyere · 160 m
Le Peintre Auguste RENOIR / (1841 - 1919) / vécut dans cette maison / de 1897 à 1902
- 3 Rue D Aumale · 190 m
RICHARD WAGNER / 1813 – 1883 / vécut dans cet immeuble / d'OCTOBRE 1860 / à / JUILLET 1861 / Les Cercles WAGNER / de France
Commemorative plaques, Ville de Paris open data (ODbL); transcriptions as published, in French. 12 in all within this radius.
Sources
- Musée national Gustave Moreau: Maison d’artiste, maison-musée
- France Today: Gustave Moreau’s museum-home in Paris
- Atlas Obscura: Stairway to heaven, life after death for Gustave Moreau
- The Brooklyn Rail: On the drawing cases at Musée Gustave Moreau
- Encyclopædia Universalis: Gustave Moreau (1826–1898)
- Wikipédia: Musée Gustave-Moreau
- Wikidata Q2296362 (coordinates, CC0)
