This New Exhibit in Paris Examines the Restoration of Notre Dame After the Fire

On April 15, 2019, the world held its breath because the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris teetered on the sting of collapse following a extreme fireplace—the exact origins of that are nonetheless under investigation. 5 years later, the injury has been cleared, the stone contained in the cathedral shines anew, and the construction’s mighty spire has been rebuilt and secured in place. With an finish in sight to essentially the most important restoration works, the town’s majestic icon is on monitor for its grand reopening on December 8, simply as President Macron vowed.

Within the meantime, there’s a singular alternative to glean a contemporary perspective on the 860-year-old monument. A brand new exhibition, that previewed on the eve of the April 24 grand opening, showcases masterpieces from the cathedral’s inside that had been saved within the days after the fireplace and restored by specialised specialists during the last two years. Seeing these marvels up shut meant venturing south of Ile de la Cité, the town’s central island, to the thirteenth arrondissement the place the Mobilier National, one in all France’s lesser-known public establishments, preserves and repairs the nation’s most precious historic furnishings and ornamental arts.

Within the Galerie des Gobelins constructing, as soon as a part of the Gobelins tapestry manufacturing facility, Restoring the Grands Decors of Notre Dame involves life. The monumental exhibit is organized by the Mobilier Nationwide and the Course Régionale des Affaires Culturelles d’Île-de-France (part of the Ministry of Tradition) with the help of the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France. In the course of the preview, its curators walked me via a selection of pieces that hint each the beloved cathedral’s ornamental historical past and its future. The brief model: It’s an opportunity to see restored items relationship again to the seventeenth century on show exterior the cathedral for the primary time, juxtaposed with up to date furnishing.

The Mobilier Nationwide preserves and repairs France’s most precious historic furnishings and ornamental arts.

David Bordes

The exhibit Restoring the Grands Decors of Notre Dame juxtaposes restored items and up to date artwork.

Faustine Letellier/Mobilier Nationwide

Among the many show of non secular work from the seventeenth and 18th centuries that loom giant in the beginning of the exhibit, essentially the most notable are the 13 large-format items from a set of 76 works known as Mays. Because the curators defined, these work had been produced by the nation’s finest artists between 1630 and 1707 and donated to the cathedral by the goldsmiths guild of Paris yearly on May 1, in honor of the Virgin Might. In the course of the Revolution, about 20 of the Mays had been dispersed when all ecclesiastical property was seized. 5 work disappeared, whereas the remainder had been transported to the Musée des Petits-Augustins and the Louvre. After the Concordat of 1801, Catholic worship at Notre Dame was restored, and these 13 items had been returned to the cathedral.

Emmanuel Pénicaut, director of Mobilier Nationwide collections, wasn’t shocked after I mentioned I hadn’t seen any of them in almost twenty years of living in Paris. “These work, every 4 meters excessive, had been hung within the nave’s very poorly lit aspect chapels, hardly seen to the common customer,” he defined. “Right here, folks can see them up shut and displayed within the order they had been painted.”