Musée Bossuet

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Musée Bossuet

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View of the museum from the garden
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Location within France
Established 1927
Location Meaux, Ile-de-France, France
Coordinates 48°57′39″N2°52′42″E / 48.960698°N 2.878316°E / 48.960698; 2.878316
Collection size Paintings, sculpture and decorative arts
Website www.musee-bossuet.fr

The Musée Bossuet is the art and history museum of the town of Meaux, France. Situated in the old episcopal palace, it takes its name from the famous orator and theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux from 1681 to 1704.

Meaux Subprefecture and commune in Île-de-France, France

Meaux is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is 41.1 km (25.5 mi) east-northeast of the center of Paris.

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet French bishop and theologian

Jacques-Bénigne Lignel Bossuet was a French bishop and theologian, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a masterly French stylist.

Contents

Buildings

The episcopal palace

Built in the twelfth century around 1160, then rebuilt in the seventeenth century, the episcopal palace architecturally is a mix of medieval and Renaissance styles. The most interesting example of eighteenth century work is the south facade of the palace, built of brick and stone, with large cross windows. The north facade is also representative of the Grand Siècle style. The lower rooms of the palace are the oldest, dating from the second half of the twelfth century. The low and high chapels also date from this time, but were expanded and redesigned in the fifteenth century.

Garden

The Bossuet garden is beside the episcopal palace. It is a formal garden in the French style with the shape of a miter. The garden was created in the seventeenth century during the episcopate of Dominique Séguier. It took the name of the great prelate in 1911, when it was opened to the public as a city park. On crossing it one reaches the study of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet.

Collections

Henri Mauperche: Landscape with the temple of the Sybil Henri Mauperche - Paysage avec le temple de la Sybille.jpg
Henri Mauperché: Landscape with the temple of the Sybil
Antoine Rivalz: Charity Rivalz - La Charite.jpg
Antoine Rivalz: Charity

The episcopal palace houses collections of paintings and sculptures, as well as items of local history. The collections have expanded thanks to the legacy of the chemist and collector Henri Moissan in 1914 and, more recently, thanks to the donation of neuro-biologist Jean-Pierre Changeux. He enriched the museum with forty works, of which the last entered the collection in 2006. Different schools of painting are shown from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Henri Moissan French chemist

Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan was a French chemist who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds. Moissan was one of the original members of the International Atomic Weights Committee.

Jean-Pierre Changeux French biologist

Jean-Pierre Changeux is a French neuroscientist known for his research in several fields of biology, from the structure and function of proteins, to the early development of the nervous system up to cognitive functions. Although being famous in biological sciences for the MWC model, the identification and purification of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor and the theory of epigenesis by synapse selection are also notable scientific achievements. Changeux is known by the non-scientific public for his ideas regarding the connection between mind and physical brain. As put forth in his book, Conversations on Mind, Matter and Mathematics, Changeux strongly supports the view that the nervous system functions in a projective rather than reactive style and that interaction with the environment, rather than being instructive, results in the selection amongst a diversity of preexisting internal representations.

Frans Floris Flemish painter

Frans Floris, Frans Floris the Elder or Frans Floris de Vriendt was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, print artist and tapestry designer. He is mainly known for his history paintings, allegorical scenes and portraits. He played an important role in the movement in Northern Renaissance painting referred to as Romanism. The Romanists had typically travelled to Italy to study the works of leading Italian High Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael and their followers. Their art assimilated these Italian influences into the Northern painting tradition.

Bon Boullogne French painter and engraver

Bon Boullogne was a French painter.

Gianfrancesco Penni Italian painter

Gianfrancesco Penni (1488/1496–1528), also known as Giovan Francesco, was an Italian painter. His brother Bartolommeo was an artist of the Tudor court of Henry VIII, and another brother, Luca, ended up as one of the Italian artists of the School of Fontainebleau.

Rooms

Access ramp: Bishops of Meaux

There are many pictures of the successive Bishops of Meaux along the access ramp.

Rooms 1 and 2: Mannerism

Giuseppe Cesari Italian Mannerist painter

Giuseppe Cesari was an Italian Mannerist painter, also named Il Giuseppino and called Cavaliere d'Arpino, because he was created Cavaliere di Cristo by his patron Pope Clement VIII. He was much patronized in Rome by both Clement and Sixtus V. He was the chief of the studio in which Caravaggio trained upon the younger painter's arrival in Rome.

Jean Senelle French painter

Jean Senelle was a French painter. He studied in the studios of Georges Lallemand and Simon Vouet. His style is similar to that of Laurent de La Hyre and Claude Vignon, showing the evolution of late Mannerism into baroque classicism. Most of his works are now in the musée Bossuet in Meaux, where he died.

Rooms 3 and 4: Classical period

Rooms 5 and 6: Eighteenth century

Room 7: Bossuet

The memory of Bishop Bossuet of Meaux (1682-1704) is evoked by his portraits by Hyacinthe Rigaud and after Pierre Mignard gathered in his old study.

Hyacinthe Rigaud 17th and 18th-century French Baroque painter

Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter most famous for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility.

Pierre Mignard French painter

Pierre Mignard or Pierre Mignard I, called "Mignard le Romain" to distinguish him from his brother Nicolas Mignard, was a French painter known for his religious and mythological scenes and portraits. He was a near-contemporary of the Premier Peintre du Roi Charles Le Brun with whom he engaged in a bitter, life-long rivalry.

Rooms 8 and 9 : The nineteenth century

Room 10: The Apothecary

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