Today Mimi, Patricia and Kim and I visited the Musée
Nissim de Camondo, close to Parc Monceau.
I was honestly impressed both by
the astonishing beauty of this home-museum as by the story of this unfortunate
dynasty, now died out. Sepharditic Jews expelled from Spain, they moved to Istanbul
where they made a fortune with their bank (they were known as the “Rothschilds
of the East.”). Once they obtained the Austrian then the Italian citizenship (thanks to the King of
Italy, Victor Emmanuel II who made them “Counts”), they moved to Paris where
they became art collectors … Isaac apparently spent a fortune to by paintings by Monet, Cezanne and more than 30
works by Degas (painting he later donated to the Louvre!). His cousin Moise,
who lived in this home as a child, decided to transform this home in a living
collection of Louis XV and Louis XVI furniture and decorative arts: the
building itself is inspired after the Petit Trianon, where both Madame de
Pompadour and Marie Antoinette lived.
Inside, each room was especially made to showcase the
precious collections, certainly one of the greatest of 18th-century French furniture: it includes rarities
such as a table topped with petrified wood that was once owned by Marie
Antoinette, an outstanding collection of Chinese porcelain, fine French
paintings, carpets from Versailles, tapestries from Aubusson illustrating La
Fontaine fables, the fabulous Sèvres Buffon service with
each piece decorated with a different bird, and the bronze and the silver from
Russian Empress Catherine II, and so much more.
One of my favorite area of the museum was the cuisine:
approximately 30 by 40 feet in dimension, tiled in white and black from floor
to ceiling, it contains the most extraordinary stove and oven I’ve ever seen.
The stove occupies almost half of the kitchen, has eight burners which
could accommodate enormous pots side by side. The oven, separated, has four
ovens and two steam cabinets. On the
opposite wall there is a huge work counter with cabinets beneath and numerous long
shelves above displaying beautiful pieces of copper cookware, bowls and more.
The fifteen domestics who lived in this house would eat in the adjacent room,
which communicates with the main kitchen through a “passe-plats”.
We are
not done yet: another door takes you to the chef’s office, which has a
“vertical passé-plat” communicating to the above formal dining room. The chef
was also the only one, among the servants, allowed to communicate through a
telephone with the exterior (mainly with the butcher…).
Next to the door there
is a “intercom” which, by means of lightened small bulbs, would allow the
servants downstairs to easily understand in which room of the immense house
their service was requested. Cool!
There was even an elevator next to the main
staircase…
When Moise’s son, Nissim, died in WWI while
fighting for France, he decided to make his house into a museum in memory of
his son. His daughter Beatrice, together with her kids and former husband, were
arrested by the the French Vichy government deported to
Dracy and then to Auschwitz, where they all died.
First of all, there was quite a discussion among us regarding how handsome was Nissim: some say he was an Andy Garcia type, some say he looked more like Sacha Baron Cohen....I'll let you decide.
While walking through the different areas, I tried to imagine how
difficult it must have been to be raised here as child, without being able to
jump on sofas, without a chance of touching or moving thins around. Not
certainly a child-proof home! Probably even the owner’s wife felt unease in
this museum-home…in fact she fled with the horse trainer! But my mind was
mostly taken by another thought: when we watched the movie about the family, I
was shocked to learn that, despite the family donation to this Country in terms
of lives and money, the French government didn't help them but actually
approved their tragic deportation. So much for friendship!
I hope you enjoyed my blog on this amazing museum. As always, comments are welcome and encouraged. Cheers!
Very interesting thank you - can you confirm that it was the French police who arrested the family or was it the Germans?
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Hello Agnes,
Deletethanks for your comment.
I am not an historian but I love history. Regarding Beatrice de Camondo's arrest, I relied on the assertion of the book "Le derniere des Camondo" by Pierre Assouline who claims that the arrest was made by the French soldiers. It doesn't surprise me at all since is well known that after the Battle of France in 1940, the Vichy Governement, lead by Pétain, did collaborate with the Nazis until the Allied liberation, fearing the division of the country between the Axis powers.The collaboration included also enforcing the anti-semitic rules in the French territory and helping the German soldiers in the rounding-up and deportation of Jews into concentration and extermination camps. At the end of the WWII several French Vichy generals and high commanders fled but the few who were arrested, including Pétain, were put on trial for treason and crimes against humanity.
I hope my answer is satisfactory.
It is a great story!
Best,
Isabella