Edouard André came from a very wealthy family of bankers active in Paris in the 19th century. Around 1869 he decided to build his residence on a plot of 5,700 square meters in the elegant Boulevard Haussmann, newly created with the urban revolution of the Grands Boulevards. The villa was inaugurated in 1876 with a lavish reception attended by all high society and Parisian celebrities. In the meantime, in 1872, Edouard commissioned his portrait from Nélie Jacquemart, a young painter who had gained a good reputation as a portraitist. In 1881, when Edouard was 48 years old, he decided to marry Nélie.
A Pair of Art Collectors
The marriage fueled the gossip of the time, as the two came from completely different families, both culturally (he was a Bonapartist Protestant and she a Catholic monarchist) and economically. Furthermore, they had no children, which led to speculation that there was no particular romantic affection between them. What actually made the marriage work and made it unique was their shared passion for art collecting. The couple regularly traveled to the Near East and Europe, particularly Italy, to purchase artworks.
Together they collected 207 sculptures and 97 paintings. Among these, the acquisition of the frescoes by Tiepolo from the Villa Contarini Pisani in Mira (near Venice) that decorate four rooms of the residence was almost epic. The frescoes were discovered by the couple during a trip to Italy in 1893. The main scene, which decorates the garden winter stairway, depicts the stop of Henry III in Venice while he was traveling from Poland to Paris to become King of France, and his visit to the Doge Contarini at the very villa from which the paintings come. The transport from Venice to Paris and the reinstallation in the Jacquemart-André residence took eight months, also because some architectural adjustments to the house were necessary. Additionally, the main painting was divided into two parts, and the second part was placed back on the dining room ceiling.
Edouard was able to enjoy the view of the Tiepolo frescoes for only a few months because he died, just sixty years old, in July 1894. His family tried to seize the estate, but a prenuptial contract had protected Nélie, who thus was the sole heir. Nélie stipulated that upon her death, the house with all the artworks would pass to the state. She set the condition that the works remain exactly as she had arranged them. Therefore, the visit route faithfully follows her concept.
The Representative Rooms and the Informal Apartments
The first rooms you visit are the representative ones, where the couple’s social life took place. The stylistic theme is 18th-century art, well represented by the paintings and marble busts on display, but also recalled by the semicircular shape of the main room, the grand salon. Guests entered the painting gallery, which served as an antechamber, and were greeted by paintings by Canaletto, Boucher, Chardin, and Nattier. The grand salon was the center of this area; on the occasion of the most important receptions, it was joined to the adjoining painting gallery and music room thanks to a hydraulic system that allowed its partition walls to be opened. The unique environment thus created could accommodate up to a thousand people. The original dining room is now the museum’s restaurant and offers the unique opportunity to take a break surrounded by 18th-century Brussels tapestries and the ceiling frescoed by Tiepolo, with a view of the villa’s garden.
The informal apartments were the rooms where the spouses conducted their affairs. Although less emphatic than the representative rooms, they are equally a treasure trove of artwork, arranged consistently with the function and style of the various environments. Among the furniture, all from the finest manufactories of the 17th and 18th centuries, stands out an inlaid console commissioned directly by Louis XVI as a gift for Mademoiselle de Fontanges. The tapestry room was built entirely around the three tapestries from the Beauvais manufactory that Edouard already owned before building the house. And then, of course, there are the paintings: the study hosts a collection of 19th-century French artists, while the library is decorated with works by Dutch and Flemish painters including Van Dyck and Rembrandt. One should not forget to look up to admire the ceilings, with frescoes by Tiepolo from Villa Contarini Pisani in the study and boudoir, and by Tintoretto in the fumoir.
At the extreme eastern side of the ground floor is the winter garden. Being adjacent to the music room, it allowed reception guests to relax in a bright environment decorated with Roman statues, plants, marbles, and mirrors. The main element of the winter garden is the beautiful monumental double-helix staircase, made light by a very fine iron and bronze railing. The wall hosts the fresco from Villa Contarini depicting the visit of Henry III.
The Italian Museum
A large part of the first floor was originally intended to be the painting studio of Nélie. However, the lady gave up the practice of this art shortly after the wedding. At the same time, the couple discovered they were passionate about Italian Renaissance art and adopted the custom of traveling to Italy once a year to purchase works from this period. This space therefore became the treasure chest of the Renaissance collections, with a true museum-style setup. Unlike the representative rooms, only close friends had the privilege of visiting this part of the house. Besides the sculpture gallery, which features a wonderful bronze plaque by Donatello depicting the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, the other two rooms that make it up are crucial to understanding the taste of the two spouses.
For Nélie, the best art came from Florence. Therefore, she set up a room whose central theme is Florentine religious art. This room looks like a chapel because it features several altarpieces, funeral monuments, and stalls. The paintings, although small in size, are among the most precious works of the entire collection. Indeed, there is a Saint George and the Dragon, an emblematic and strongly symbolic work by Paolo Uccello that Nélie courted for years after seeing it in the Florentine house of an antique dealer, but was able to purchase only at an auction in London in 1899 because she would not have been allowed to take it out of Italy after the controversies that erupted over acquiring the Tiepolo frescoes. Then there is a pair of Madonnas and Child, works respectively by Botticelli and Perugino. The type of composition is similar, since the two painters came from the same school and were both inspired by Andrea Verrocchio, to the point that when Nélie bought the Botticelli, she initially thought it was a Verrocchio.
Edouard, on the other hand, preferred Venetian and Northern Italian art, a less common choice among collectors of his time. His Venetian gallery combines religious subjects (including a Madonna and Child by Bellini and an Ecce Homo by Mantegna), with mythological subjects such as the Visit of the Amazon Hippolyta to Theseus by Carpaccio. The visit ends with the most intimate part of the house: the bedrooms of the two spouses.
The Domaine de Chaalis
There is another place linked to the history of Nélie Jacquemart and it is the Domaine de Chaalis, an estate 40 kilometers from Paris, in the heart of the Valois. Widowed, after resolving the controversies related to her inheritance, Nélie undertook a world tour in 1901. Returning the following year, she purchased the Domaine and dedicated herself until her death to furnishing it and setting up a collection of marble busts and art objects that ideally tell the story of the royal abbey that is part of the complex.
In this setup, as well as in that of the Paris house, Nélie reveals her desire to share over time her passion with those who, like her, love art and history.
