Should you find yourself in Paris, there are many small exhibitions and events that take place to be considered, one of them is viewing the Titian and Raphael drawings amongst the many gems on show.
Behind the façade of 121 Rue de Lille, in the elegant seventh arrondissement, there is the eighteenth century Hôtel Turgot, where it seems as if time has stood still. This is where the Frits Lugt Collection is housed under the watchful eye of the Foundation Custodian. Despite being a small gallery exhibition it currently holds ninety Italian masterpieces from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that include works by Michaelangelo, Raphael, Correggio and Titian to name a few.
Rembrandt interior with Saskia in bed
The works by Michaelangelo, such as, the ‘Grotesque Heads, c1525’ and Titian’s ‘Study of St Sebastian for the High Alterpiece in SS Nazaro e Celso in Brescia, dating from 1519-1520’, together with works Raphael and Correggio, are on loan from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany from where the core of the collection comes.
Johann Friedrich Städel was a banker and businessman who left a bequest which formed the Städel Museum, ranking as Germany’s oldest museum foundation and offering a virtually complete survey of seven hundred years of European art from the early fourteenth century to the present. The museum focuses on Renaissance, Baroque, early Modern art and much more, encompassing altogether 3,000 paintings, 600 sculptures, more than 4,000 photographs and more than 100,000 drawings and prints. The work collected is hugely impressive in covering an array of major artists from Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, Sandro Botticelli, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Vermeer, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter, Wolfgang Tillmans and Isa Genzken to highlight just a few.
Jong kind LeHavre 1862 Paris Custodia
The pictures in the exhibition collection are from a geographical spread in Italy and include illustrations that have rarely come before the public and as such show seminal and quite stunning works like ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ by Parmigianino.
Other works of art in the gallery have been dated as early as 1430 and show the interweaving of art and princely politics in Renaissance Italy. The gallery selection shows works of art that were specifically commissioned to help propagate and emphasize the ideals of court, civic and political power.
The gallery is open all days except Mondays from 12:00 to 18:00 hours and tickets cost €4-6. As Parisians say themselves, it can be considered as one of their hidden gems.