The Château de Fontainebleau has organized a visit to the Porte Dorée restoration site and to the cartoons by Jean-Baptiste Oudry for Louis XV’s Chasses Royales tapestries. This visit will allow you to discover the inner workings of the two major restoration projects at the Château.

From the scaffolding of the Pavillon de la Porte Dorée, we will have the pleasure of showing you how the restoration of the Porte Dorée—principal entrance to the Château during the reign of François Ier—is advancing. The first major restoration of the frescos in more than sixty years, the project will restore the luminosity and interpretability of the décor, created by Primaticcio in the 1540s, at the very apogee of his career.

You will then enter the heart of the workshop set up in the château for the restoration of the preparatory cartoons for the tapestries known as the Chasses Royales by Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Primarily a painter of dogs and hunt scenes, he worked on these eight cartoons for fifteen years.  Four of these immense works, masterpieces of 18th century French painting, will be exhibited in 2024 in a major exhibition devoted to the artist.

Around the nature - selection of drawings from the graphic arts cabinet

Presentation of a selection of sheets devoted to the animal and plant world in the collections of the Musée des Années 30 de Boulogne-Billancourt. Visit by Benjamin Couilleaux, head curator of the heritage, director of the municipal museums and heritage of Boulogne-Billancourt

Louis Billotey, Le Sacrifice d’Iphigénie, 1935, gouache on cardboard, 95x70 cm, Inv. 2003.31.3 © Musées de la ville de Boulogne-Billancourt, Arkhénum, 2018 © Adagp, Paris, 2022

Belonging to network of documentation under the auspices of Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, the Mazarine and Institut de France libraries constitute the second largest national collection after that of the BnF. 

Twin institutions located on the Quai de Conti, they invite you to discover the history of their respective collections, each possessing its own distinctive and complementary collections where drawings—whether artistic, scientific or technical—occupy an important place.

Bibliothèques de l’Institut de France, Charles Percier, « Casino de la Villa d’Este et une partie de ses jardins », Voyage à Rome. Bibliothèque de l’Institut, ms 1009, fol.59, pièce 98.

Self-guided visit to the two graphic arts exhibitions-events presented by the Fondation Custodia

Créer. Dessiner pour les arts décoratifs 1500–1900. Collection du Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Drawing for the Decorative Arts 1500–1900. Rijksmuseum Collection, Amsterdam)
and Cabinet de dessins néerlandais. Le XVIIIe siècle. Collection des Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Cabinet of Dutch Drawings. 18th century. Collection of the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts of Belgium).

With more than two million documents, the Museum libraries constitute the largest collection of natural history materials in France, and the third largest in the world.

Madame Alice Lemaire, Directrice des Bibliothèques et de la Documentation, has proposed this visit to the Bibliothèque Centrale with a presentation of beautiful works on paper from national heritage collections, evoking the history of the greenhouses in the Jardin des Plantes and the plant species grown there.

Charles Rohault de Fleury, Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. Grande Serre de l'Est, 16 August1854, watercolor, ink and pencil on paper, 60 x 80 cm, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Ms 5081 (2), plate 19

This year, as part of the Salon du Dessin, the Cabinet d'Art Graphique of the MNAM/Centre Pompidou is offering a double look at its collections: Laëtitia Pesenti, curator, will present a selection of works from the Giuseppe Penone donation based on his monumental garden projects, as well as a small collection of paper collages by Picasso, Braque and Gris showing how the artists played with plant motifs to enliven their compositions.

Private visit to the exhibition "Collection II, dessins du XVIIe à aujourd’hui” (Collection II, Drawings from the 17th Century to the Present), which invites you to travel through the ages through the drawings in the Collection Tomaselli, from the 17th century to the present.

Attention: this visit takes place in Lyon

Among the works you will be able to admire are drawings by Jean-Jacques de Boissieu, Puvis de Chavannes, Louis Janmot, Jean-Michel Grobon, Antoine Berjon, Fleury Epinat, Jean-Antoine Duclaux, Eugène Delacroix, Antoine Ponthus Cinier, Marcel Roux, Jean Puy, Combet Descombes, Thomas Henriot, and others...

Led by Sébastien Bontemps, Chargé de Valorisation du Patrimoine at the museum, the Musée de l’Armée invites you to visit what was historically the office of the Gouverneurs of the Hôtel des Invalides where a selection of items from the collection will be displayed, prior to a visit to the elaborate wooden framework supporting the roof of the Cathédrale Saint-Louis and then to the first-level terrace with its splendid view over the gardens of the Hôtel and of Paris.

For the Semaine du Dessin, the Fondation des Artistes invites you to a private visit of the Cabinet de Curiosités at the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild.

In addition to seeing the pastels and watercolors by Delacroix, Decamps and Lami collected by Adèle and Salomon de Rothschild and exhibited in the corridor of the Cabinet de Curiosités, the visit is also an opportunity to present a group of drawings, photographs and paintings representing the English gardens at the foundation’s Nogent-sur-Marne site.

Classed as a site pittoresque in 1908, the ten hectares of the grounds were the object of numerous representations by its last owners, the painter Madeleine Smith-Champion and the photographer Jeanne Smith, as well by artists at the Maison Nationale des Artistes, a retirement home reserved for artists founded in 1945.

L’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art invites you to visit a selection of works on paper from its collection of drawings focusing on gardens and plants. 

Plant elements abound in the graphic arts collections in the library at INHA: festive décors, elements from architectural projects, archeological reconstructions, ornamental elements, works in progress, drawings by artists for their own entertainment, etc. As far as the art of gardens is concerned, selections include those that focus on a certain mood, how to set a scene in nature or demonstrate mastery of it.

The visit will present a selection of drawings and prints illustrating the plant kingdom and of this form of art in historical sources, from the modern era to the 21st century.

Private visit to a Paris collection of curiosities, a kind of secret garden serving as an inspiration for the Maison Hermès.

Grandson of the prestigious Parisian saddle-maker and visionary entrepreneur, Emile Maurice Hermès (1871-1951) was a lover of all that combined the beautiful with the useful. He put together a collection of singular objects from the world of art and the decorative arts, paintings, drawings and books—a veritable chronicle of horses and travel that crisscrosses latitudes and eras.

Preserved as it was originally displayed, his private collection constitutes an astonishing Aladdin’s cave of treasures. Travel cases for toiletries, walking sticks with ingenious mechanisms, goat carts, masterpieces of Carmelite paper-art, saddles and slipper-stirrups from the Amazon, a horse-tricycle, and a whimsical 18th century herbarium mark the path on a trip through time in these captivating surroundings, a reflection of the history of Maison Hermès and the source of its creativity.

The Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner invites you to a visit behind closed doors to the temporary exhibition Jean-Jacques Henner Portraitiste  (Jean-Jacques Henner Portraitist) led by Maëva Abillard, Conservateur en Chef of the museum.

This exhibition-dossier of roughly 20 drawings is an opportunity to discover Henner’s great talent for portraiture. Visitors will then be invited to the conservatory of the museum to view a selection of beautiful works on paper from his graphic arts collection.

Jean-Jacques Henner, Portrait de Thérèse Bianchi, later Comtesse Joachim Murat. Study, pencil, charcoal and oil on paper, inv. JJHP 363, Paris, Musée national Jean-Jacques Henner © RMN-GP / Gérard Blot Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner, Vue de l’atelier gris (View of the Grey Studio) ©Jean-Yves Lacôte

Between 1906 and 1912, the celebrated couturier and great patron of the arts, Jacques Doucet (1853-1929), lived in a town residence built especially to house his collection of 18th century art on the Rue Spontini in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Drawings held a particularly important place in it.

The exhibition "Doucet et Camondo: une passion pour le XVIIIe siècle" evokes the mansion through the watercolors done by the decorator Adrien Karbowsky (1855-1945) and forges the link between Doucet and Moïse de Camondo (1860-1935), who purchased some of the items in his collection from Doucet.

Adrien Karbowsky, Studies for the Salon des Pastels, longitudinal cross-section [East elevation], watercolor on tracing paper, 1.2 × 1.4 cm each, 1907, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’INHA, Jacques Doucet Collections, OA 719/15a et b.

From 16 March 16 to 30 April 2023 at the Pavillon Comtesse de Caen (Palais de l’Institut de France), the Académie des Beaux-Arts will exhibit works by the finalists and winners of the Prix de Dessin Pierre David-Weill - Académie des Beaux-Arts 2023.

For the first time, the exhibition will present a selection of drawings from the holdings of the libraries of the Institut de France on the theme chosen for the Semaine du Dessin, De l’Art des Jardins de Papier (The Art of Paper Gardens).

Created in 1971 by Pierre David-Weill (1900-1975), member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and actively supported for over forty years by his son, Michel David-Weill (1932-2022), also a member of the Académie, this prize was founded to encourage new generations of artists to practice this fundamental gesture of creative expression.

The jury is composed of members from the departments of engraving and drawing, painting and sculpture from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Three prizes are awarded, and a number of drawings selected by the jury will be displayed along with the prize-winning works.

The 2023 Prix de Dessin Pierre David-Weill – Académie des Beaux-Arts: Julien-Arnaud Coriongiu, Solène Rigou (detail) and Violaine Desportes, Prize winners 2022

Guided tour to the exhibition “Eugène Lami (1800-1890), premier décorateur moderne” (Eugène Lami (1800-1890), Pioneer of Modern Interior Decorators) by the Commissaires d’Exposition, Bénédicte Gady and Audrey Gay-Mazuel, Conservatrices du Patrimoine.

The first truly modern decorator, the painter Eugène Lami orchestrated the decoration of the fabulously luxurious dwellings of the children of Louis-Philippe under the Monarchie de Juillet, followed by those of the Rothschild family in the second half of the 19th century. His watercolours, true portraits of interiors, reflect his research into the extreme refinement that we now call "Rothschild great taste".

The exhibition presents 30 drawings from the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, recently restored thanks to the generosity of the Salon du dessin and the artist Christelle Tea.

Eugène Lami, Etude de cheminée pour le grand hall du château de Ferrières, ca. 1860, graphite, pen, brown ink, watercolor and gouache on paper, purchased in 1937, inv. 32621

An exceptional visit to the whole of its site at Nogent-sur-Marne, including the English gardens usually closed to the public.

Serving as a veritable link between the different edifices of the estate, the English gardens were one of the first sites to be classified pittoresque, in 1908. The creation of this large park, with its follies, and other artistic representations will be the subject of a walking tour, completed by a visit to the recently restored Bibliothèque Smith-Lesouëf.

A selection of drawings by Auguste Lesouëf lent by the BnF will be presented there. Participants are free to complete their experience on their own with visits to the neighboring exhibitions at the MABA, Centre d’Art de la Fondation des Artistes, and the Maison Nationale des Artistes.

Between 1906 and 1912, the celebrated couturier and great patron of the arts, Jacques Doucet (1853-1929), lived in a town residence built especially to house his collection of 18th century art on the Rue Spontini in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Drawings held a particularly important place in it.

The exhibition "Doucet et Camondo: une passion pour le XVIIIe siècle" evokes the mansion through the watercolors done by the decorator Adrien Karbowsky (1855-1945) and forges the link between Doucet and Moïse de Camondo (1860-1935), who purchased some of the items in his collection from Doucet.

Adrien Karbowsky, Studies for the Salon des Pastels, longitudinal cross-section [East elevation], watercolor on tracing paper, 1.2 × 1.4 cm each, 1907, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’INHA, Jacques Doucet Collections, OA 719/15a et b.

Private dwelling of Louis XIV, the Château de Marly was built in a shallow wooded valley overlooking the Seine. It consisted of a central royal pavilion with twelve small lateral pavilions, giving on to a perspective of ponds, groves and sculptures. This all combined to form an enchanting spot for those who were lucky enough to be invited there.

The gardens of the Château de Marly were endowed with an exceptional group of sculptures done by the best artists late in the king’s reign. The visit proposed traces the history of these gardens and their elaboration through the collections of the museum.