Today the museum belongs to the Institut de France, but the building was originally the residence of the art lovers Nélie Jacquemart and Edouard André, a couple who left the collections they had built up over the years to the French state.
Originally, the Musée Jacquemart-André was a private mansion commissioned by Edouard André, a keen collector from a great banking family, and built until 1875 by the architect Henri Parent in Boulevard Haussmann. As soon as the building was finished, the owner began to put his fortune to work in acquiring works of art that he exhibited in this beautiful neo-classical residence. In 1881 he married Nélie Jacquemart, a talented artist who painted his portrait. Together, they devoted their lives to their shared passion: acquiring works of art so that as many people as possible could see them. The couple always paid great attention to the interior decoration of their home, as if it were already a museum. So it was not surprising that when they died, the residence was left to the Institut de France and became a museum, in accordance with the couple's wishes, in 1913 during the presidency of Raymond Poincaré. The writer Joseph Péladan defined the museum as a place where "art works together with life".
At the Hôtel Mansart we invite you to discover this museum with its large reception rooms, private apartments, the Italian museum and the winter garden, while admiring the different works of art acquired by Nélie Jacquemart and Edouard André.
The museum has a rich collection of paintings:
• French: Chardin, Pater, Nattier, Boucher, De La Tour, Fragonard.
• Italian: Nélie Jacquemart decided to bring together on a single floor "the Italian museum" with works by Italian artists from the 14th to the 16th century. Among the artists are Pietro di Cristoforo, Vannucci, Guardi, Tiepolo, Giovanni Antonio Canal, Vittore Carpaccio, Andrea Mantegna, Botticelli, Bellini, as well as Uccello with his famous Saint George and the Dragon.
• English: Reynolds and Lawrence with the Portrait of the Earl of Buckinghamshire
• Flemish and Dutch: Van Ruysdael, Frans Hals, Van Dyck and Rembrandt's Pilgrims at Emmaus.
Sculptures, furniture and objets d’art are also on display. A total of 5 000 works are exhibited in the museum.