Free Midi File. Even if they try to rotate their works, most museums show only part of their collection. While waiting for the reopening of places of culture, their curators unveil a collection of treasures usually hidden.
► Auguste Renoir’s cup of tea
This simple boxwood ball bears witness to Renoir’s chronic joint disease.
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“His rheumatism was beginning to bother him, and he was trying to put off the moment when he could no longer act with his legs and with his hands” says the filmmaker Jean Renoir, who still saw his father, the master of impressionism “constantly juggling in his house with three balls, to maintain the flexibility of his fingers… He also played cup-ball, he loved cup-ball. ”
When Renoir died, the family suggested to Albert André, the faithful pupil and constant friend, to take whatever he wanted from his last Parisian workshop, which he had been responsible for taking inventory. The artist Laudunois recovered some intimate objects including the cup-and-ball which he found under a piece of furniture where he had rolled.
This simple boxwood ball bears witness to Renoir’s chronic joint disease who, despite suffering, never let go of his brushes, leaving to posterity some of the masterpieces of the early twentieth century.
Sacred Art Museum, 2, rue Saint-Jacques, in Pont-Saint-Esprit. 04 66 39 17 61.
► The rehabilitation of Elena Baletti
This painting was made by the Montpellier resident Jean Raoux between 1720 and 1725.
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But who is this lady with a mask? This is the question that Pascal Trarieux, the curator of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes, asked himself when he discovered, in the middle of Covid, this painting among the four thousand works carefully stored in the museum’s reserves: “Like many paintings, we had almost no information on this painting. Except the name of the painter, Jean Raoux, to whom it could possibly be attributed and the name of the donor: the Nîmes collector Charles Tur, owner of the Licorice of Moussac. “
Consequently, the curator took advantage of the first confinement to conduct research “like a detective” and thus track the author of the work and his model. “The problem initially was that the costume appeared to be from the 17th century and the hairstyle from the 18th century. She was not a noblewoman! So I assumed that she was an actress.”
After weeks of research, the verdict falls: the painting was indeed done by the Montpellier resident Jean Raoux between 1720 and 1725. As for the model, it is an Italian actress, Elena Baletti, playing in a commedia dell troupe ‘arte. “This portrait of Elena Baletti can now be exhibited and possibly loaned to the Fabre museum in Montpellier.”
Museum of Fine Arts, rue de la Cité-Foulc, in Nîmes. 04 66 76 71 82.
► The museum is pulling out its claws
Dinosaur front paw claw casts.
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For more than fifty years, the Nîmes natural history museum has housed in its reserves casts of dinosaur front paw claws. These bones are all the more interesting because they were discovered in the Gard garrigue in 1965 by René Jeantet, who at the time was none other than the curator of the Nîmes natural history museum.
“Today we only have casts because the original bones were sent in 1965 to Montpellier to be studied by researchers from the paleontology laboratory,” said Adeline Rouilly, the current director of the Museum. And they still are today. . ”
This discovery is exceptional because it is the first and to this day, the only one relating to dinosaurs in the department. “The specialists agree to say that 135 million years ago, estimate dated from these claws, water covered the whole of Gard and that consequently, these bones were undoubtedly transported by water and partly devoured by sharks “, underlines the director.
Preserved until now in the Montpellier reserves, these claws could well return to their native land by 2022 with the organization in Nîmes of an exhibition devoted to the dinosaurs of the south of France. And who knows, maybe even stay there permanently!
Natural History Museum, 13, boulevard Amiral-Courbet, in Nîmes. 04 66 76 73 45.
► Braque’s cap
Georges Braque’s cap.
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The Alésien Pierre André Benoit, known as PAB, most certainly recovered the cap in Georges Braque’s workshop when he visited him or else, he would have kept it in memory of a walk in 1979 at Pont-du- Gard. PAB having photographed the painter wearing this cap in front of the monument. The photo appears in the book Au Pont-du-Gard.
The enigmatic cap, which has obviously served a lot, bears many traces, in particular that of a strong friendship that lasted several years between Georges Braque, one of the masters of modern art, and the young publisher that was Pierre at the time. André Benoit. They have produced many books together.
The PAB museum keeps this souvenir object simply as an archive. No less than seventeen works by Georges Braque appear in his collections (gouaches, drawings, prints, and one oil on canvas. All except one date from the mid-1950s and early 1960s. The predominant motif is the one which invaded then all the work of Braque: the bird.
PAB Museum. rue de Bruzen, in Alès. 04 66 86 98 69.
► The Iron Age Gold Coin
This coin is a quarter of a stater in gold.
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This coin, discovered in Aigremont in 1980, is a quarter of a gold stater which was struck in the Massif Central by the Arvernes. It dates from around 100 years BC. One face represents an Apollo’s head, the other a horse and a wheel that evoke a chariot.
This type of coin, rare in Languedoc, testifies to the increase in trade and exchanges at the end of the Iron Age between Italy, Marseille and the Languedocians of the time, called Arecomic Volques. This quarter of a statere above all reveals the important role of the Porte des Cévennes, and in particular the site of the Hermitage in Alès, as an intermediary counter between the local populations and the Greek or Roman colonists.
The latter then exchanged amphorae of wine for foodstuffs, thus developing trade between the lower Rhône valley and Auvergne. Although exceptional, this piece remains an isolated discovery, and only scientific excavations of preserved archaeological sites make it possible to restore its history to the general public. It will soon be visible in the first rooms of the Colombier d’Alès museum, which is currently being renovated.
Colombier Museum, rue Mayodon in Alès. 04 66 86 30 40.
► Abandoned child ticket
The Pont-Saint-Esprit hospital took in abandoned babies.
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“Don’t worry, she is baptized and her name is Catherine.” This moving post, accompanied an abandoned baby, and taken in by the hospital of Pont-Saint-Esprit. The establishment, since its foundation in the 14th century, was intended to take care of poor travelers, the sick and exposed children.
At the time, destitution or adultery, pushes mothers to leave their newborns at night at the door of the bridge or in town. In order to avoid infanticides or to be at the mercy of passers-by, the hospital took charge of them and entrusted them to nurses, most often far from Pont-Saint-Esprit, so that mothers who remained anonymous did not volunteer as a nanny by breastfeeding their own child for remuneration. The mortality rate for children in care was very high.
Some of them remained in hospital, receiving treatment and instruction from a preceptor on site. Boys of working age were apprenticed to artisans in the city. The girls were placed in good homes as maids and despite difficult times, generously endowed at the time of their marriage.
Sacred Art Museum, 2, rue Saint-Jacques, in Pont-Saint-Esprit. 04 66 39 17 61.
► The strange carriage of the 1900 Museum
A unique piece.
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It is a unique piece which today sleeps quietly in the reserves of the superb 1900 Museum, in Arpaillargues. “It’s a coach that we made in our workshops, laughs Régis Baron, the owner of the premises and son of the creator of the museum. We built a resin sphere that we installed on a carriage frame. We wanted to create a magical vehicle that would mix modern and ancient techniques. ”
Successful effect since this strange cab worthy of Cinderella had the honors of the local parade in 1995. Three years later, a new construction was born in the family workshops. This time it is a strange vehicle made up of two 2 CV chassis on which are mounted two aircraft fuselages all pulled by a 2 CV engine.
“This craft is also in the reserves and should be exhibited with the carriage, if all goes well, next summer in one of the new exhibition halls. The aim is to desecrate the museum and offer it to the public the possibility of touching and getting on the exhibits. “
Currently, the museum’s reserves are full of more than 3,500 objects of all kinds dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. As much as the number of splendid pieces exhibited to the public.
1900 Museum, 2, chemin du Moulin, in Arpaillargues. 04 66 22 58 64.
► Le “Totem” de Martial Raysse
Made in 1962 by the French artist, Martial Raysse.
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This neon installation created in 1962 by the French artist, Martial Raysse, was acquired by the Carré d’Art museum in Nîmes in 1990 at the time when the nascent cultural establishment was run by Robert “Bob” Calle, whose one of the main missions is to create a permanent collection.
“It was precisely at this time that the artist will use the neon which symbolizes the United States where he goes regularly, underlines Jean-Marc Prévost, the museum’s curator. It depicts modern life and brings to mind the Pop art movement. ” This material will occupy an increasing place in Raysse’s work until 1966.
Note that this work – a second is also present in the Nîmes reserves – is very fragile and rarely presented to the public. As a result, it could not be transported to Italy for the retrospective in 2015 of Raysse’s work desired by François Pinault at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
Carré d’Art, Place de la Maison-Carrée, in Nîmes. 04 66 76 35 35.
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