The story
On the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris stands a mansion built in the 1870s for Edouard Andre, heir to a banking fortune, who married the society portraitist Nelie Jacquemart after she painted him. The couple had no children and one shared passion: collecting. They travelled, especially to Italy, buying constantly, and designed the house from the start as a setting for what they brought home.
The result is one of the best small collections in Paris, kept as they arranged it. There is 18th-century French painting, Flemish and Dutch work including Rembrandt, and upstairs an 'Italian museum' the couple built for their Renaissance treasures by Botticelli, Uccello, Mantegna and Bellini. A famous double spiral staircase and a ceiling by Tiepolo carry you up to it.
Nelie left the whole house and its contents to the Institut de France on her death in 1912, on the condition that nothing be moved, which is why you can take tea today in the mansion's own dining room under a Tiepolo ceiling, surrounded by a marriage's worth of Old Masters.
Collection
14 works
Ecce HomoAndrea Mantegna, 1500
The Supper at EmmausRembrandt, 1628
Madonna and Child with saints Jerome and LouisAndrea Mantegna, 1455
Portrait of Mathilde de Canisy, Marquise d'AntinJean-Marc Nattier, 1738
Portrait du comte Antoine Français de NantesJacques-Louis David, 1811
Portrait of countess Yekaterina SkavronskayaÉlisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, 1790
The Model's First SittingJean-Honoré Fragonard, 1769
Madonna with child and three saintsAndrea Mantegna, 1490
Portrait of Princess Amalia van SolmsRembrandt, 1632
Portrait of a manFrans Hals, 1660
Virgin and ChildPietro Perugino, 1470
The Flight into EgyptSandro Botticelli, 1510
The Virgin and ChildSandro Botticelli, 1470
Virgin and Child EnthronedGiovanni Bellini, 1510