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MADAME MONSIEUR – Avignon European City
of the Culture 2000
The Musée Calvet
65 Rue Joseph Vernet
F - 84000 Avignon
www.avignon.fr/fr/musees/calvet.phd
2nd -15th October
Built for the Marquis of Villeneuve the Villeneuve-Martignan residence was acquired by the city of Avignon in 1833 with the intention of housing the Calvet collections there. Open to the public in 1834 the museum was one of the very first modern French museums. The long array of small rooms on the first floor dating from the 18th century fell victim to the renovations carried out to accommodate the building's new role as museum. Fortunately the large galleries and the three salons on the ground floor with ornamented wood panelling and valuable stucco ceilings have survived to the present day.
The Musée Calvet is characterised not only by its exhibition of masterworks and its large number of important collections. A felicitous unity exists between the museum's present function, the existing building built by the provençal architects Franque, in itself a work of art, and the collections which it houses. In 1810 Esprit Calvet (1728-1810) bequeathed his library, his collection of "Egyptian, Greek and Roman rarities" as well as his collection of modern art to the city of Avignon. The Museum is fortunate to possess a complete curiosity cabinet from the 19th century.
Therefore the world of antiquity is omnipresent: a world which has lost none of the fascination it aroused in Renaissance times, whether the exhibits be objects retrieved from archaeological sites or bewitching paintings inspired by meditation on the universe, the fleeting nature of time or the vanity of human action.
The Musée Calvet is a place of contemplation, of memories, full of feeling and light. It exists however very much in the present, a place which awakens life and creative energies. Visitors and artists from the areas of music, dance and theatre find in the museum a source of inspiration.
The museum creates a connection between past and present, learning and poetry, between conservation and creation, antiquity and modernity. The parcours of MADAME MONSIEUR traveled through the courtyard, the Vernet Gallery, the Salon Vernet, the stone staircase and the sculpture hall of the museum.
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