Pierre Rosenberg, the former director of the Louvre, has announced plans to donate his vast collection of paintings and drawings dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries to the town of Les Andelys in Normandy, northern France. Rosenberg’s holdings include around 800 paintings and more than 3000 drawings. He also plans to donate his archive under the new initiative.
The town council has subsequently backed plans to turn a care home known as l’Hotel de Penthièvre (Hôpital Saint-Jacques) into a museum and research centre that will house the collection. The new centre will focus on the 17th-century French painter Nicolas Poussin, who was born in Andelys. According to local press reports, local and regional authorities will fund the venue; a feasibility study for the project is due to be released in September.
Guillaume Kientz, a paintings curator at the Louvre, will oversee the scheme. He tells us: “The project involves giving the works to a kind of public foundation rather than to the town [authorities]. There is already a charming Musée Poussin in Les Andelys, which will be part of the new project and transferred to the Penthièvre building when it is turned into a museum.”
In 1962, Rosenberg joined the Louvre, rising through the ranks to become director in 1994. In 2000, he curated an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London dedicated to the 18th-century artist Chardin.
