SAINT-AUGUSTIN : MUSÉE JACQUEMART-

ANDRÉ A Couple of Collectors Un couple de collectionneurs

The Musée Jacquemart-andré whose collection was amassed by a married couple of art collectors, Edouard André and Nélie Jacquemart, is fittingly welcoming an exhibition devoted to the Impressionist works brought together by another couple of collectors Wilhelm and Henny Hansen who hailed from Denmark. Entitled The Impressionists of the Ordrupgaard Collection, the show brings together over 40 paintings, many of which are being shown in Paris for the first time, by among others, Cézanne, Sisley, Monet, Gauguin, Renoir and other leading artists of the movement.

The couple assembled this collection, unique in Europe, of works representative of the Impressionism and Post-impressionism movements, in just over two years from 1916 to 1918. For their first acquisitions the couple chose works from the golden age of Danish painting as well as contemporary art. During business trips to Paris Wilhelm Hansen discovered modern French paintings and began to acquire works by Monet, Sisley and many other artists and would seek out the leading Parisian gallery owners of the time like Bernheim-jeune and Paul Rosenberg.

The works are permanently housed in the stunning, light-filled manor house Ordrupgaard, north of Copenhagen that the Hansens had built as a home for their family along with a gallery to display the collection. Inaugurated in 1918, the family opened their home to the public once a week to view the collection. The home and the collection were left to Denmark in 1953, which turned the ensemble into a museum.