Le voyage sensible du collectionneur dans les écoles italiennes et françaises du XVIe au XVIIIe siècles

This lecture aims to look back on twenty years of collecting old paintings and drawings in order to examine the main motivations and lessons learned. What does collecting “old works” still mean today? Why focus on the Italian and French schools, and on specific periods ranging from the 16th to the 18th century? Why bring together paintings, drawings, sketches, and studies, and embrace such a vast collection—nearly 160 works by 120 artists? Through dialogues between schools, traditions, artists, and subjects, the lecture explores what the collector learns along the course of a sensitive, haphazard, and sometimes uncertain journey. Finally, it examines what sharing a collection can offer—to experts and laypeople alike—when it is presented to the public eye.