The Musée des beaux-arts de Tours is located in the bishop’s former palace near the Cathedral St. Gatien, where it has been since 1910.It displays rich and varied collections, including that of painting which is one of the first in France both in quality and the diversity of the works presented.
The Museum of Fine Arts Tours is housed in a historic building of exceptional quality. The site is of paramount importance for the history of ancient Caesarodunum; the museum houses in its underground the most beautiful lapidary inscription to the glory of the Turons. The first bishops had chosen to settle near the cathedral, in a palace along the wall of the fourth century.
Another vestige of this period, a chapel leaning against the archbishops palace dating from the fourth century. and rebuilt in 591 by order of Gregory of Tours. This building was transformed in the twelfth century and partly destroyed in the seventeenth century during the development of the new Archbishop’s palace of Bishop Bertrand d’Eschaux .. In the twelfth century was built the so-called wing of the Synod. Constantly transformed over the centuries, this huge hall where gathered twice (1468 and 1484) the States General of the Kingdom of France is one of the most evocative historical sites in the history of Touraine.
Monsignor Rosset de Fleury completed the project thanks to the construction of the pediment and attic palace and the layout of the terraces whose curve follows the layout of the Roman amphitheater. Finally, Monsignor de Conzié had the imposing portal and the semicircle of the main courtyard erected in 1775, instead of the old stables. He transformed the old synod hall into an archiepiscopal chapel and commissioned an antique colonnade for this purpose.
After 1789, the Palace of the Archbishops became a theater, Central School, library then by departmental order of October 6, 1792 and the passionate energy of the founder of the school of drawing of the City, Charles-Antoine Rougeot and his son-in-law, Jean -Jacques Raverot, a deposit of works seized at the Revolution.
The museum was officially created in 1801, in 1802 and throughout the nineteenth century, buildings were again assigned to the archbishop. It was not until 1910 that the collections returned to the former archiepiscopal palace.
Panoramic view of Tours by Demachy
Collections (Wikipedia)
The museum has a large and fairly homogeneous collection of paintings, which includes several masterpieces such as two paintings by Andrea Mantegna, from the predella of the San Zeno Altarpiece:
- Collection of Italian Primitives shows works by Mantegna, Antonio Vivarini, Giovanni di Paolo, Lippo d’Andrea and Lorenzo Veneziano. Italian painting of the following centuries is represented by works of Giovanni Battista Moroni, Mattia Preti, Sebastiano Conca, Francesco Cairo and Giuseppe Bazzani.
- The French painting until the nineteenth is displayed by artists such as Claude Vignon, Philippe de Champaigne, Jacques Blanchard, Noël Coypel, Eustache Le Sueur, Jean Jouvenet, Charles de La Fosse, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Nicolas de Largillière, Pierre Subleyras, François Lemoyne, Jean-Marc Nattier, François Boucher, Carle Van Loo, Nicolas Lancret, Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Joseph Vernet, Hubert Robert, Ingres, Théodore Chassériau, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet.
- The collection of Flemish and Dutch painting presents works by artists such as Rubens (Virgin and Child), Rembrandt, Frans II Francken, Gerard ter Borch, Bartholomeus van der Helst, David Teniers the Younger.
- Modern painting is represented with artworks by Maurice Denis or Maria Elena Vieira da Silva.
- There are sculptures by Jean-Antoine Houdon, Auguste Rodin, Antoine Bourdelle, Alberto Giacometti and Olivier Debré.
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