Second coming for Notre Dame’s salvaged artworks
There was a moment on 15 April 2019 as the flames consuming Notre Dame Cathedral roared into the evening sky when it seemed all would be lost. Miraculously, firefighters stopped the blaze reaching the bell towers – whose collapse would have almost certainly brought the facade down – and from destroying the bells, the Grand Organ and the Parisian monument’s stained-glass rosette windows.
The bee hives on the roof also survived, along with dozens of treasures including precious artworks, ancient books and relics extracted by a human chain of firefighters, police and city council workers.
In the weeks after, as the damage was assessed, a unique collection of 17th-century religious paintings was removed from the cathedral, damp but mostly undamaged.
The 13 “Mays” – part of a series of 76 large oil works painted by the best artists in France between 1630 and 1707 – had hung in the cathedral’s chapels, often overlooked by visitors.
They will go on public display, having been restored by experts from Mobilier National, the body charged with conserving France’s historical objects, before returning to Notre Dame for its reopening in December.
Emmanuel Pénicaut, director of Mobilier National collections, said: “We were very lucky to be able to get them out with just a little water damage and dust. It was rather miraculous.
“The exhibition is a chance to see them all in one place, in the order they were painted, which is how they would have been originally displayed. What you see now is how they would have looked the day they were completed.”
The Mays earned their name from the annual competition held by Confrérie des Orfèvres (Goldsmiths’ Guild) in Paris for paintings to be completed by May, when they would be offered to the virgin, whose statue stood at the entrance of the cathedral. It was intended to symbolise the supremacy of the Catholic faith after the French Wars of Religion, eight civil conflicts between Catholics and Protestant Hugenots from 1562 and 1598, that cost the lives of up to 4 million people.
The theme would be from the acts of the apostles and the paintings were supposed to be 3.2 metres high and 2.6 metres wide, though some made them larger. The artists, including Charles Le Brun and Jacques Blanchard, looked to antiquity and Greek and Roman themes for inspiration.
Each year, after the May was presented, it was exhibited on one of the stone pillars flanking the nave of Notre Dame. During the French Revolution the paintings, like many religious works, were dispersed. Several were returned to the cathedral in 1802 and remained there until 1862, when the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who added the spire to Notre Dame, saw them as incompatible with his plans, and they were placed in the Louvre.
“The paintings suffered two major catastrophes, the revolution and the arrival of Viollet-le-Duc, who got rid of much of the medieval decorations in Notre Dame,” Pénicaut said. “In 1905, they were put back but not along the nave pillars as they were before but in side chapels, which meant we lost the unity of the collection.” Pénicaut added that the new exhibition is the first time they have been displayed in the same place for more than 160 years.
“They are truly great classical paintings and were painted by the best artists of the age. They not only have a great religious significance but an artistic value too.
“Of the 76 painted, we know the whereabouts of 52 of them, seven of which are in private collections in the UK, others in churches in France.”
The exhibition features another nine religious paintings saved from the fire as well as part of Notre Dame’s rarely seen 27-metre-long chancel rug ordered by King Charles X, that was stored in a box at the time of the blaze, suffering only minor water damage.
The rug has been used only at a handful of major events, including the marriage of Napoleon III, the first president of France and its last emperor, who died in exile in England in 1873.
Visitors will also be able to view 14 large tapestries woven in the 17th century for the Notre Dame chancel, which are now owned by Strasbourg Cathedral, depicting scenes from Mary’s life, and contemporary works and furniture – including 1,500 oak congregation chairs – that will be installed in the cathedral.
After the 2019 fire, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, pledged to rebuild the cathedral in five years. A Te Deum, a service of thanksgiving, was held on Monday, the fifth anniversary of the fire, with Notre Dame opening on 8 December.
The decorations of Notre Dame will be on exhibition at the Mobilier National, Paris, from 24 April-21 July