Petit Palais

The Petit Palais is a Historic building of France and Musée of beautiful the Art S located in the VIII {{E}} district of Paris, avenue Winston-Churchill, vis-a-vis the Large palace builds at the time of the World Fair of 1900 by the Architecte Charles Girault.

Presentation

The Petit Palais is organized around a semicircular garden. The places of exposure are located on the first floor, the ground floor being devoted at the origin at the offices and the reserves.

The frontage makes close to 150 m length, centered by a surmounted monumental porch of a dome. doric colonnades decorate of it the principal face as well as the semicircular Péristyle of the interior court. The decoration is supplemented by many Bas-relief S.

Charles Girault had conceived the spaces only lit by the natural light, creating glass, transparent cupolas and broad bays. These openings were gradually occulted, in order to safeguard exposed works.

The frontage of the royal Museum of central Africa of Tervuren, in Belgium, also drawn by Charles Girault, will partly take again the composition and the reasons for the Petit Palais.

The architecture of the Petit Palais resembles very significantly the Opéra of Saigon in Vietnam, old capital of French Indo-China. Built it also in 1900 (from where this resemblance).

Collections

As of 1902, the Petit Palais becomes “Palate of the Art schools of the Town of Paris” to accommodate a permanent collection (Antiquity at the end of the 19th century, collections of the 20th century being with the Palais of Tokyo), and of the temporary exhibitions.

These collections were enriched by multiple donations which one can quote most important:

Eugene and Auguste Dutuit yielded their collection in 1902, rich person of almost 20.000 works and comprising several major works to the Dutch school (including one Autoportrait of Rembrandt and the Enlèvement of Proserpine of Rubens), of the Antiquité S grecquo - Roman, of the objets d'art of the Moyen-âge and the Renaissance, the Gravure S and the Dessin S of Masters (Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Fragonard…).
Edward and Julia Tuck yields in 1930 their collection of objets d'art French of the XVIIIe century.
Ambroise Vollard yields several modern works to the museum, among which one can quote the Portrait of Ambroise Vollard to the cat by Pierre Bonnard (1924) or another carried of the patron by Paul Cézanne (1899).
Roger Cabal bequeaths to the museum a collection of icons in 1998.

Parallel to these gifts, the museum will acquire many works of which several tables of Gustave Courbet.

Some great exposures

1955, foreign Artists in France (Alkis Pierrakos, Genevieve, Nina Tryggvadottir, Zaven Hadichian, Paul Jenkins…)
1967 treasures of Toutankhamon . Organized by the Egyptologist Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, the exposure must help with the rescue of the temples of Nubie, of which the Temples of Abou Simbel, threatened of disappearance by the installation of the High stopping of Aswan. The concept of “inheritance of humanity” emerges then. The exposure which will start again French passion for the Egypt, will last more than six months and will gather some 1,2 million visitors.

The restoration

Between January 2001 and June 2005, the Petit Palais was closed for restoration. The Maîtrise of work of work was ensured by the Atelier of architecture associated Chaix & Morel and .

The Petit Palais reopened its doors with the general public the December 10th 2005 by exposing three photographers having followed work: the photographer Flora, Patrick Tourneboeuf and Bruno Delamain.

Additional spaces of exposure are created at the ground floor (22 000 m ² on the whole), reserves being moved with the basement. The permanent collection is on the left exposed while entering, the temporary exhibitions on the right.

Between the two, the bottom of the garden, a coffee makes it possible to be refreshed. The windows of spaces of exposure and the canopies of the permanent collections are restored for the daylight. The offices are located above the temporary exhibitions. An amphitheater is created at the ground floor under the garden.

Reference

File of art: Petit Palais, the restoration and the collections n° 125, December 2005

See too

List of the Parisian museums
Museums, monuments and sites of Paris

External bonds

the Petit Palais on the site of the town hall of Paris
www.floreensonpalais.net the work of the photographer Flora at the Petit Palais
the Small Palate current Photographs and of the years 1900.

on Wikimapia

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