©Marc Riou
At the helm of the Cognacq-Jay Museum for two years, Annick Lemoine has a contagious sense of wonder: listening to her talk about "her" 18th-century collections is a delight. It must be said that "her" museum resembles a "mini-Louvre" with its stunning collections assembled by Ernest Cognacq, founder of the Samaritaine department store, and his wife, Marie-Louise Jay.
The walls of the Hôtel de Donon (end of the XNUMXth century) indeed house treasures: paintings by Canaletto, Guardi, Boucher, Fragonard, Vigée Le Brun, Greuze, Watteau and La Tour rub shoulders with porcelain from Saxony and Sèvres as well as goldsmith objects and stamped furniture.
A lover of the Marais whose architecture, galleries and diversity she admires, Annick Lemoine has a curriculum vitae as long as the XNUMXth century (to which her museum is dedicated): former resident of the prestigious Villa Médicis, heritage curator, doctor in history of art, specialist in European painting of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, former scientific director of the Fontainebleau art history festival, she has built a reputation for excellence with the successful exhibitions of which she has been a curator at the Petit Palais, the Villa Medici, the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In short, nothing but heavy!
©Anaïs Costet
©Anaïs Costet
Text: Katia Barillot
Video: Anaïs Costet – Instagram
08.09.20
