Museum of Fine Arts (Musee des beaux-arts de Nice) description and photos - France: Nice (Topic)

Museum of Fine Arts (Musee des beaux-arts de Nice) description and photos - France: Nice. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Musee des beaux-arts de Nice.

Photo and description

Nice Museum of Fine Arts is located in the Kochubei Palace on the Avenue Baumet. The palace is magnificent, its halls hide true treasures.

The museum has mixed French-Russian roots. The idea of creating an art collection in Nice was suggested by Emperor Napoleon III during his visit to the city. For him, it was a political step: according to the treaty of 1860 with Piedmont-Sardinia (the predecessor of Italy), the territory of the County of Nice was ceded to France, and the emperor strove to look decent in the eyes of his new subjects. However, there was no building for the museum then, its collection was first kept in the archives and the local library, then exhibited in premises that were not very suitable for this.

In 1878, the Kochubey spouses moved to Nice, Prince Lev Viktorovich and Princess Elizaveta Vasilievna, an amateur composer who composed popular romances (for example, "I knew my eyes" to the poems of Tyutchev). It was Elizaveta Vasilievna who bought a plot of land in Nice and started the construction of the palace. She soon grew tired of this undertaking and in 1883 sold the unfinished building to the American industrialist James Thompson. In 1925 the town bought the villa. It houses the Palace of Arts, where the museum of the artist Jules Cheret was created. Gradually, the collection expanded due to donations from many collectors, and Nice has a Museum of Fine Arts.

Its collection is located on two floors. When entering, the visitor first of all crosses the former winter garden, which now houses the patio, and enters an exhibition of primitive Provence painting of the 16th-18th centuries. Here is a large hall, dedicated to the work of the Wang Loo dynasty of painters. On the ground floor, you can also see works by Agnolo Bronzino, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Abraham Bloomart, Jean Honore Fragonard. A magnificent monumental staircase leads to the second floor, which houses a collection of 19th century academic painting and sculpture, impressionists and post-impressionists. On this floor you can get acquainted with the works of Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Eugene Boudin, Alexander Cabanel, Edouard Vuillard. There are also sculptures by Jean-Baptiste Carpeau, Francois Ruda, Auguste Rodin.

Built on a grand scale, the elegant Kochubei Palace with its high ceilings and excellent lighting itself gives the impression of a museum exhibit. Its first owners, prince and princess Kochubei, rest in the Kokad Orthodox cemetery in Nice. Passing the ceremonial halls you can mentally call up these two images from the darkness of the age. The chords of the romance will sound faintly, an unknown life will rustle, in which Nice was something like a summer residence for brilliant and self-confident Petersburgers - and again there are only silent paintings and sculptures around.

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Topic: Museum of Fine Arts (Musee des beaux-arts de Nice) description and photos - France: Nice.