The Musée Fabre is a museum in the southern
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
city of
Montpellier, capital of the
Hérault
Hérault (; oc, Erau, ) is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France. Named after the Hérault River, its prefecture is Montpellier. It had a population of 1,175,623 in 2019.[département
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety- ...]
''.
The museum was founded by
François-Xavier Fabre, a Montpellier painter, in 1825. Beginning in 2003, the museum underwent a 61.2 million euro renovation, which was completed in January 2007. It is one of the main sights of Montpellier and close to the city's main square, the
Place de la Comédie. The museum's national importance is recognised by it being classified as a ''
Musée de France'' by the
French Ministry of Culture
The Ministry of Culture (french: Ministère de la Culture) is the ministry of the Government of France in charge of national museums and the . Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and protection of the arts (visual ...
.
History
The town of Montpellier was given thirty paintings in 1802 which formed the basis of a modest municipal museum under the
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
, moving between various temporary sites. In 1825, the town council accepted a large donation of works from Fabre and the museum was installed in the refurbished ''Hôtel de Massillian'', officially opened on 3 December 1828. Fabre's generosity led others to follow his example, notably Antoine Valedau who donated his collection of Dutch and Flemish masters to the city. On the death of Fabre in 1837, a legacy of more than a hundred pictures and drawings completed the collection.
In 1864, Jules Bonnet-Mel, an art collector from
Pézenas, bequeathed 400 drawings and 28 paintings. In 1868,
Alfred Bruyas gave the works from his private gallery to the city. He is credited with having moved the museum collection into the modern era. In 1870, Jules Canonge, from
Nîmes, gave a collection of more than 350 drawings. A legacy of Bruyas of more than 200 works completed his gift in 1877.
In 1968, Mme in accordance with the will of her husband, a diplomat and great bibliophile, gave to the city their ''hôtel particulier'' , along with its contents. The structure had been built under the
Third Republic.
Around 2001, the Library moved out of the complex, freeing a sizeable area and offering the chance to carry out a major modernisation and enhancement of the building. This took four years and included a whole new wing. The building re-opened in February 2007.
Collection
:''See also
:Paintings in the collection of the Musée Fabre.''
On display are
ceramics
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...
from
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...
and the rest of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
. Furthermore, the museum has a large collection of paintings from the 17th until the 19th century, with a large representation of the
''luminophiles'' movement. There is also sculpture.
Painting from 15th to 18th century
Some of the well-known painters featured in the museum:
French :
*
Jacques-Louis David 5 paintings including ''Hector'', ''Portrait of Doctor Alphonse Leroy''
*
Alexandre Cabanel
*
Sébastien Bourdon
*
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...
(''Venus and Adonis'')
*
Simon Vouet
*
Gaspard Dughet
*
Charles Le Brun
Charles Le Brun (baptised 24 February 1619 – 12 February 1690) was a French painter, physiognomist, art theorist, and a director of several art schools of his time. As court painter to Louis XIV, who declared him "the greatest French artist ...
*
Nicolas de Largillière
*
Hyacinthe Rigaud
Jacint Rigau-Ros i Serra (; 18 July 1659 – 29 December 1743), known in French as Hyacinthe Rigaud (), was a Catalan-French baroque painter most famous for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility.
Biography
Rigaud ...
*
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (; 17 March 1686 – 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. His son, Jacques-Ch ...
*
Carle Van Loo
Carle or Carlé is a surname. Notable people with the name include:
*Andrea Cosima Carle, whose stage name is Maggie Mae (1960 – 2021), German singer
* Barbara Carle (born 1958), French-American poet, critic, translator and Italianist
*David C ...
*
Claude Joseph Vernet
*
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (, 21 August 1725 – 4 March 1805) was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting.
Biography Early life
Greuze was born at Tournus, a market town in Burgundy. He is generally said to have formed ...
: 9 paintings including ''Le Petit Paresseux'', ''
Twelfth Night Cake''
*
Hubert Robert

Outside France :
*
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
:
**
Jacopo Bassano
Jacopo Bassano (c. 1510 – 14 February 1592), known also as Jacopo dal Ponte, was an Italian painter who was born and died in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, and took the village as his surname. Trained in the workshop of his father, Francesco ...
**
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Caliari (152819 April 1588), known as Paolo Veronese ( , also , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter based in Venice, known for extremely large history paintings of religion and mythology, such as ''The Wedding at Cana'' (1563) and ''The ...
**
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci (; November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609) was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of t ...
**
Alessandro Allori
Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori (Florence, 31 May 153522 September 1607) was an Italian painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school.
Biography
In 1540, after the death of his father, Allori was brought up and trai ...
: 3 paintings including ''Venus and Cupid''
[http://www.wga.hu/art/a/allori/alessand/venus_cu.jpg ]
**
Federico Zuccari
Federico Zuccaro, also known as Federico Zuccari (c. 1540/1541August 6, 1609), was an Italian Mannerist painter and architect, active both in Italy and abroad.
Biography
Zuccaro was born at Sant'Angelo in Vado, near Urbino ( Marche).
His do ...
**
Bernini
Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...
** Il
Guercino
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 – December 22, 1666),Miller, 1964 better known as Guercino, or il Guercino , was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from Cento in the Emilia region, who was active in Rome and Bologna. The ...
: 2 paintings
**
Domenichino : 2 paintings
**
Salvator Rosa
**
Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano (18 October 1634 – 3 January 1705) was an Italian late- Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence, and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain.
Ea ...
**
Mattia Preti
**
Francesco Guardi
Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (; 5 October 1712 – 1 January 1793) was an Italian painter, nobleman, and a member of the Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the classic Venetian school of ...
**
Giovanni Pannini
Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini (17 June 1691 – 21 October 1765) was an Italian painter and architect who worked in Rome and is primarily known as one of the ''vedutisti'' ("view painters"). As a painter, Panini is best known for his vistas of ...
*
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
and
Holland
Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
:
**
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
Pieter Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger (, ; ; between 23 May and 10 October 1564 – between March and May 1638) was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work as well as hi ...
: 2 paintings
**
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradit ...
: 3 paintings
**
Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael : 3 paintings
**
Gerrit Dou
Gerrit Dou (7 April 1613 – 9 February 1675), also known as Gerard Douw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his ...
**
Gabriel Metsu : 2 paintings
**
Frans van Mieris the Elder : ''
Young Woman Stringing Pearls''
**
Gerard ter Borch
**
Jan Steen : 2 paintings
**
Adriaen van Ostade
**
David Teniers the Younger : 8 paintings
*
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
:
**
Francisco Zurbarán
Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name '' Franciscus''.
Nicknames
In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed " Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comunitatis'' (father o ...
: 2 paintings including ''The Angel Gabriel''
**
Jusepe Ribera
Jusepe de Ribera (1591 – 1652) was a painter and printmaker, who along with Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artists of Spanish Baroque painting. Referring to ...
*Other :
**
Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs (22 March 1728 – 29 June 1779) was a German painter, active in Dresden, Rome, and Madrid, who while painting in the Rococo period of the mid-18th century became one of the precursors to Neoclassical painting, which replac ...
**
Joshua Reynolds
Painting from the 19th and 20th century, with a number of Fauvist painters
*
Frédéric Bazille (''
Vue de village'', ''
Aigues-Mortes
Aigues-Mortes (; oc, Aigas Mòrtas) is a commune in the Gard department in the Occitania region of southern France. The medieval city walls surrounding the city are well preserved. Situated on the junction of the Canal du Rhône à Sèt ...
'', ''
La Toilette'', ''
Atelier de la rue Furstenberg'')
*
François-Léon Benouville (''The Wrath of Achilles'')
*
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
15 paintings including ''The Bathers'' or ''Les Baigneuses'', ''
Bonjour Monsieur Courbet''
*
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: British ...
(''Fantasia'', ''Algerian women in their room'')
*
Kees van Dongen (''Portrait of
Fernande Olivier
Fernande Olivier (born Amélie Lang; 6 June 1881 – 29 January 1966) was a French artist and model known primarily for having been the model and first muse of painter Pablo Picasso, and for her written accounts of her relationship with him. Pic ...
'')
*
Raoul Dufy
*
Jean Hugo
*
Albert Marquet
*
Pierre Soulages
*
Nicolas de Staël
*
Claude Viallat
*
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (13 June 1908 – 6 March 1992) was a Portuguese abstract painter. She was considered a leading member of the European abstract expressionism movement known as Art Informel. Her works feature complex interiors and c ...
Image:Gustave Courbet 010.jpg, '' Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet'' (Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
)
Image:Frédéric Bazille 002.jpg, '' Vue de village'' ( Frédéric Bazille)
File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Frédéric Bazille.jpg, ''Frédéric Bazille at his Easel
''Frédéric Bazille at his Easel'' is an 1867 oil-on-canvas painting by Auguste Renoir, produced in response to Frédéric Bazille's own 1867 portrait of Renoir. It is owned by the Musée d'Orsay , which deposited it in 2006 at the Musée Fabre ...
'' (Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that " ...
)
Image:Francisco de Zurbarán 031.jpg, ''Saint Agatha
Agatha of Sicily () is a Christian saint. Her feast is on 5 February. Agatha was born in Catania, part of the Roman Province of Sicily, and was martyred . She is one of several virgin martyrs who are commemorated by name in the Canon of the ...
'' (Francisco de Zurbarán
Francisco de Zurbarán ( , ; baptized 7 November 1598 – 27 August 1664) was a Spanish painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nickname "Spanis ...
)
Image:Allori Venus Cupido.jpg, ''Venus and Cupid'' (Alessandro Allori
Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori (Florence, 31 May 153522 September 1607) was an Italian painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school.
Biography
In 1540, after the death of his father, Allori was brought up and trai ...
)
Sculpture
*
Antoine Bourdelle
*
Jean-Antoine Houdon (''Summer, Winter'')
*
René Iché
René Iché (21 January 1897 – 23 December 1954) was a 20th-century French sculptor.
Life and work
René Iché was born in Sallèles-d'Aude, France. He fought in World War I, where he was injured and gassed. After the war, he earned a degre ...
*
Aristide Maillol
*
Germaine Richier
See also
*
List of Jesuit sites
References
External links
Official Musée Fabre (Agglomération de Montpellier) website��
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musee Fabre
Fabre
Buildings and structures in Montpellier
Museums in Hérault
Fabre
Art museums established in 1828
1828 establishments in France
Tourist attractions in Montpellier