The Musée des Années Trente's graphic arts collection contains a wealth of drawings by artists associated with travel: study trips, commissioned work, family or friendly visits...

We invite you to discover the masterpieces drawn in Italy, the Maghreb, South-East Asia, the United States and other parts of the world by artists as prestigious as Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Paul Jouve and André Maire, among others.

Presentation by Benjamin Couilleaux, Director of Boulogne-Billancourt Municipal Museums and Heritage.

Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Building de Wall Street vue de New Street, 1930,
Crayon graphite sur papier, 46x27 cm, Boulogne-Billancourt, musée des Années Trente, inv. 2007.2.1 ; Musées de la ville de Boulogne-Billancourt - Photo Philippe Fuzeau

Mathias Auclair, director of the BnF's Music Department, will present a selection of drawings from the collections of the Bibliothèque-musée de l'Opéra on the theme of travel.

Philippe Chaperon Le bateau à vapeur "La Pintade"
Esquisse de décor pour le 3e acte du Voyage en Chine, opéra-comique de François Bazin, Opéra-Comique, 1866, Aquarelle et gouache,, BnF, département de la Musique, Bibliothèque-musée de l'Opéra

"This island of fantastic dreams contains all the forms of passion, fantasy and caprice in women".
Gustave Moreau

More drawn than painted, this "long meditated" work is the result of more than five hundred preparatory studies and reflects Gustave Moreau's interest in the Middle Ages. On this canvas, the painter seems to have woven a profusion of architectural and ornamental elements, and hybrid creatures, inspired as much by Flemish tapestries, illustrated encyclopaedias and popular magazines. Signed and dated 1884, the year of his mother's death, this allegorical work was never completed and remained in the painter's studio until the end of his life.

This visit will provide an opportunity to explore this atypical painting in more detail, to gain a better understanding of Gustave Moreau's creative process, and to present a number of preparatory drawings, notably those kept in the "secret cupboards" of this house museum, as a special feature of the Salon du Dessin.

Les Chimères, (c)RMN-GP / Sylvie Chan-Liat

The Drawing Week is an opportunity to open the Musée de l'Armée's graphic arts cabinet and discover a selection of drawings tracing the history of the collection in connection with the imminent opening of the Hôtel des Invalides, entre histoire et mémoire trail as part of MINERVE I, as well as evoking some of the founding figures and the history of the Hôtel des Invalides.

The XVII^th Salon du dessin International Symposium, devoted to “travel drawings”, will provide an opportunity to bring out some of the sheets, particularly on distant conflicts, moments of discovery of new landscapes and populations.

Official artists, amateurs and pencil-wielding soldiers all contribute to this iconography, providing a more personal view of their experiences in the field.

The tour is led by Sylvie Le Ray-Burimi, chief curator and head of the fine arts and heritage department, Sébastien Bontemps, heritage development officer, and Laëtitia Desserrières, head of the drawings collection.

Paul Jouve (1878-1973)
Macédoniennes fuyant les bombardements à Monastir, 1916
Fusain, peinture à l’huile, aquarelle sur papier vélin. Paris, musée de l’Armée, inv. 20960-4 ; Fb 1099, Photo (C) Paris - Musée de l'Armée, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image musée de l'Armée © ADAGP, Paris

In 2023, a few months after Liliane's death, Michel Durand-Dessert made a major donation to the Musée national d'art moderne. It brought together the leading artists represented by the Gallery between 1975 and 2004, including many Arte povera artists, Gerhard Richter, Michel Parmentier, Barry Flanagan and David Tremlett.

To mark the occasion, the Graphic Art Department will be exhibiting over a hundred drawings, including works by Pino Pascali, Eugène Leroy, Gérard Garouste, Giuseppe Penone and Joseph Beuys. It's an opportunity to look back at the close links that the gallery owners have forged with the institution, and the porous relationship between the Gallery's activities and the collections of the Musée national d'art moderne, through various purchases and donations from the early 1980s to the present day.

A retrospective journey through the collections based on a donation.

Eugène Leroy, Nu, 1984.
Don de Liliane et Michel Durand-Dessert, 2023. Collection Centre Pompidou, Paris. Musée national d’art moderne - Centre de création industrielle
© ADAGP, Paris © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Joseph Banderet/Dist. RMN-GP

The library collections of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle hold important collections of drawings that bear witness to the first expeditions led by Western naturalists in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

From the West Indies to the Levant, these travelling artists depicted the flora and fauna studied on site: a selection of drawings from these expeditions will be on display at the Central Library.

Charles Plumier, Arum hederaceum, amplis foliis perforatis,
cat. 4, [s.d.] Dessin préparatoire à la planche 56 de la Description des plantes de l'Amérique avec leurs figures, par le R. P. Charles Plumier, Religieux Minime, 1693. Gouache sur papier. Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. DES 12 (14)

Maëva Abillard, the museum's chief curator, will be giving a guided tour of the temporary exhibition dedicated to the museum's centenary.

A dozen drawings by artist Christelle Téa, produced during her residency at the Musée Henner in 2016, will be on display, capturing the "spirit of the place".

Visitors will then be invited to a presentation of drawings made by Jean-Jacques Henner during his trip to Italy (1859-1864), to be held in the museum's winter garden.

Christelle Téa, Le salon rouge, 2017
Encre de Chine sur papier, JJHD 2017-5, Paris, musée national Jean-Jacques Henner © Christelle Téa

XVII^th edition of the Rencontres Internationales du Dessin on the theme of "Travel Drawings
Under the direction of Marco Simone Bolzoni, curator of Old Master and 19th-century drawings from the Debra and Leon Black Collection, New York.

To find out more

Attend the first study day
Wednesday 20 March, 2.30 pm to 6 pm
With speeches by:

Marco Simone Bolzoni
Curator of Old Master and 19^th century drawings from the Debra and Leon Black collection, New York
Introduction

Catherine Whistler
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Travel, Drawing and the imagination in the Italian Renaissance: the artist, the amateur and the armchair traveller

Lorenza Melli
Il ‘taccuino di viaggio’ di Pisanello

Francesca Mattei
Università degli Studi RomaTre, Rome
Disegno, memoria, immaginario. Architetti e architetture in viaggio

Cécile Tainturier
Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris
A l’Est, du nouveau. Dessins des peintres néerlandais en voyage dans les contrées germaniques au XVII^ème siècle

Albrecht Dürer, Costume d'hiver de trois dames de Livonie
pen, black ink, watercolor, 183 x 194 mm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 21 DRr.

As part of the Salon du Dessin, the Archives nationales will be presenting a selection of drawings relating to scientific voyages of discovery in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Whether they were produced as part of personal initiatives or official missions, in France or at the other end of the world, these works - sometimes poorly done, sometimes highly accomplished - reflect the efforts made by these surveyors of the globe to illustrate and document their observations.

Pascal Riviale, head of documentary studies in the Education, Culture and Social Affairs department at the Archives nationales, and curator of the exhibition Des voyageurs à l'épreuve du terrain: études, enquêtes, explorations (1800-1960), presented in 2016 at the institution's Paris site, will introduce the framework within which these drawings were produced during a tour on Thursday 21 March 2024 at 11.30am.

The Château de Fontainebleau is not known to house a graphic arts collection, even though it contains over 3,500 sheets of paper. This major collection of images of the château includes not only the palatial collection of prints sent to decorate the flats from the early 19^th century, but also the many acquisitions made since the early 20^th century.

The exhibition is designed as a walk through time and space, presenting the many facets of the château, centred around the courtyards and gardens, the emblematic rooms and the grand decors. Visitors will discover the château through the centuries, through the eyes of the artists and architects who shaped and immortalised it.

The aim of the exhibition is to create a "dictionary of love", a graphic inventory of the château, its grounds and the forest.

© Château de Fontainebleau 2023

XVII^th edition of the Rencontres Internationales du Dessin on the theme of "Travel Drawings
Under the direction of Marco Simone Bolzoni, curator of Old Master and 19th-century drawings from the Debra and Leon Black Collection, New York.

To find out more

Attend the second study day Thursday 21 March, 2.30 pm to 6 pm
With speeches by:

Austéja Mackelaité
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Stepping Out: Depictions of Netherlandish Artists Outside the Studio, 1530-1600

Marco Mansi
The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
Contours of Influence: the Roman Landscape Drawings of Giovanni Battista Naldini

Baptiste Roelly
Château de Chantilly
Claude Lorrain

Luca Baroni
Rete Museale Marche Nord
A Star that Bewitches People: The Georgian Drawings of Father Cristoforo Castelli (1632-1654)

Alessia Frassani
Material and Visionary Travels in Mesoamerica and Europe

Alice Laforêt
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris

Gentile Bellini, Un janissaire turc
pen, black ink, 215 x 172 mm, Londres, British Museum, inv. Pp,1.19.

An intimate residence of Louis XIV, the Château de Marly was built in a wooded valley overlooking the Seine. It consisted of a central royal pavilion and twelve smaller side pavilions, on either side of a perspective decorated with pools, groves and sculptures.

The whole was an enchanting place for those who had the honour of being invited. The gardens of the Château de Marly boasted an exceptional collection of sculptures created by the finest artists of the late reign.

This tour will trace the history of these gardens and their ornamentation through the museum's collections. It will also be an opportunity to discover "L'Œuvre de la Saison", devoted this season to Jean-Baptiste Oudry's drawing "Vue de la rivière de Marly", a late landscape created by the artist in Marly.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Vue de la rivière de Marly
Pierre noire sur papier, Musée du Domaine royal de Marly, © Louis Bourjac

To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the Fondation Dubuffet is presenting from 15 March to 20 December 2024 Fondation Dubuffet: chronicle of 50 years of activity.

This anniversary exhibition presents major works from the collection, focusing on the portrait and the figure: gifts from the artist, bequests from his daughter and more recent acquisitions.

Particular emphasis is placed on a set of ten portraits of friends and writers from the series Plus beaux qu'ils croient, painted in pencil or Indian ink on paper between 1946 and 1947.

The exhibition then moves on to a room evoking the artist's studio at the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, and offers a glimpse of the initial endowment, an essential contribution when the Foundation was set up.

Jean Dubuffet, Les prestations, 6 juillet 1979
Acrylique sur papier entoilé (avec 6 pièces rapportées collées), 51 x 70 cm Coll. Fondation Dubuffet, Paris © ADAGP, Paris, 2024

Lifting the golden veil from the incomparably poetic landscapes he painted, mainly in Rome, this exhibition presents drawings and etchings by Claude Lorrain to explore the flashes, hesitations and doubts of one of the most important masters of the 17^th century.

A tireless draughtsman, Claude used broad ink washes, meticulous pen strokes and rapid notations in black stone to study nature, transcribe the light of the sun at different times of day and compose everyday, religious or mythological scenes. Transposed into engravings, his subjects took on new tonalities and lost none of the experimental freedom that characterised Claude's work.

Drawn from public and private collections, previously unpublished and long-admired works at the Château de Chantilly reveal the questions the artist asked himself and the ways in which he tried to answer them. the creative process and intimacy of one of the most singular figures in the history of art.

The Musée Condé's collection, the largest collection of Claude's drawings in France after that of the Louvre, will be presented in its entirety.

Claude Gellée, dit Le Lorrain, Port de mer, coucher de soleil, vers 1635-1640
Plume, encre brune et lavis brun, 13.8 x 20.2 cm, Chantilly, musée Condé © RMN - Grand Palais - Adrien Didierjean

The 2024 edition of the Salon du Dessin is an opportunity for the Prints and Photography Department to present, in conjunction with the Rencontres Internationales on 20 and 21 March, a selection of drawings on the theme of travel.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see a selection of some of the BnF's most precious works, taken out of storage for the occasion: from the first autonomous landscape painted by Albrecht Dürer at the gates of Nuremberg around 1495, to Henri Gaudin's frantic pen strokes on the pages of his "TGV" notebooks in the 1990s, to the sublime pages of Edgar Degas' notebooks on a visit to Naples.

Albrecht Dürer, Le Moulin aux saules, vers 1495-1496
Réserve B-13 (2)-boite écu, ©BnF/ Gallica

During this presentation, visitors will discover documents from the heritage collections of the library of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art, including the most recent entries.

These now reflect the legacy and continuation of the rare and precious collections acquired by Jacques Doucet for the Bibliothèque d'art et d'archéologie.

In January 2016, these collections were joined by the antiquarian books and manuscripts of the Bibliothèque centrale des musées nationaux, newly associated with the INHA. Sheet drawings, archive items, correspondence and bound manuscripts illustrate the richness and variety of a library whose ambition is to serve research in the history of art and heritage and to contribute to its influence.

Lettre d’Etienne-François Haro à son frère Adolphe, 25 août 1857
(BCMN Ms 468/2) (c) INHA

Travel is a major source of inspiration for artists and an essential stage in their training. A practice shared by all scholars (art lovers, collectors, archaeologists, etc.), between the experience of distance and the discovery of another universe, they are a wonderful opportunity to multiply contacts and experiences, to see and think differently about the world.

Using examples from the heritage collections of the library of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (sheet drawings, manuscripts, archives, correspondence), this tour will explore the ways in which drawing enabled travelling artists to describe the unknown world they were discovering, to express an emotion or to imagine other places.

Alexandre de Laborde,
Dessin ayant servi à illustrer le Voyage pittoresque et historique de l’Espagne, vers 1800 (MS 463)(c) INHA

As twin sisters on the Quai de Conti, the Mazarine and Institut de France libraries have the second largest written and graphic heritage collections in France.

Drawings - be they artistic, satirical, scientific or technical - occupy a special place.

As part of Drawing Week, the two libraries invite you to discover, in the heart of their two magnificent reading rooms, some remarkable items from their respective collections, which have strong, complementary identities.

Bibliothèques de l’Institut de France, Charles Percier, Casino de la Villa d’Este et une partie de ses jardins, Voyage à Rome. Bibliothèque de l’Institut, ms 1009, fol.59, pièce 98. Photo : Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France

The Musée Magnin opened its doors to the public in 1938. Housed in the Hôtel Lantin (1663-1664), it displays the collection assembled by Maurice Magnin (1861-1939) and his sister Jeanne (1855-1937) between 1881 and 1935.

It includes more than 2,000 French and foreign works (from Italy, Spain, the Northern Schools, Great Britain and Scandinavia), from the 14th to the early 20th century (around 1,300 paintings, 600 drawings, sculptures, furniture and objets d'art). In keeping with the wishes of its founders, the museum has retained the spirit of an amateur cabinet and a lived-in residence.

From 21 March to 23 June 2024, in collaboration with the Grand-Palais-RMn, Paris, and with the exceptional participation of the Musée du Louvre, the museum invites visitors to discover the inventive and poetic art of Claude Gillot (1672-1722), a draughtsman and engraver in the final years of the Grand Siècle.

Guided tour of the exhibition "Claude Gillot. Comedies, fables & arabesques" in the company of the curators, followed by a presentation of some drawings from the permanent collection of the Musée Magnin.

Claude Gillot, La Fausse coquette, plume et encre noire, lavis de sanguine, 16 x 21,8cm,  Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Arts graphiques, inv. 26751

This half-day study session devoted to Gillot will provide an opportunity to defend the image of the artist, who has long been seen through the exclusive prism of Watteau and the Italian theatre.

Although he owed his reputation to the fantasy and originality of his works, which prefigured the freedom of tone and morals of the Regency, Gillot was nonetheless a scholarly artist, linked to the publishing world of the rue Saint-Jacques and the literary circle of the Moderns.

This meeting will give us the opportunity to explore the rue Saint-Jacques milieu, to understand how Gillot, whose career was solitary and independent, was in search of "modern subjects" and what role the writer Houdart de La Motte played throughout his life, helping him to achieve success through the illustration of the "Fables nouvelles".

Claude Gillot, Les Animaux comédiens pour l’illustration des « Fables nouvelles » de Houdart de La Motte, 1719, gouache, 7,6 x 9,7cm, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Arts graphiques, Inv. 26749

The permanent collections of the Musée de Montmartre present a unique collection of paintings and graphic arts devoted to the history of the Butte, the artistic effervescence of its studios and the atmosphere of its famous cabarets.

As part of a recent museological renewal, the top floor of the collections features a new display devoted to the eleven artists who lived in the studios that formed the current museum at the turn of the 20^th century: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Maximilien Luce, Raoul Dufy, Othon Friesz, Charles Camoin, Émile Bernard, Francisque Poulbot, Démétrius Galanis and the "infernal trio" formed by Suzanne Valadon, André Utter and Maurice Utrillo.

A collection of lithographs never before shown to the public is included on this floor; they were the subject of an exceptional donation from Henri Marie Petiet's collection to the Musée de Montmartre at the end of 2023.

Henri Marie Petiet was an extraordinary visionary dealer, impertinent and passionate, who entered the world of prints when he met the great Ambroise Vollard, his mentor, in February 1924. He was sought after for both his expertise and the quality of his works. The acquisition of a jewel of engraved art, the "Suite Vollard", a monumental collection of one hundred plates by Picasso, established his reputation.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Louis Valtat, 1904 1905,
Lithographie, épreuve sur velin blanc, éditions Ambroise Vollard, 1919, Musée de Montmartre, coll le Vieux Montmartre, don indivision Petiet 2023

An intimate residence of Louis XIV, the Château de Marly was built in a wooded valley overlooking the Seine.

It consisted of a central royal pavilion and twelve smaller side pavilions, on either side of a perspective decorated with pools, groves and sculptures. The whole was an enchanting place for those who had the honour of being invited. The gardens of the Château de Marly boasted an exceptional collection of sculptures created by the finest artists of the late reign.

Come and discover this residence on a self-guided tour!

While there is no evidence of a link between Balzac and Daumier, there is every reason to believe that they crossed paths in the newspaper rooms and at the publishers with whom they worked regularly.

With this exhibition, the Maison de Balzac sets out to establish a correspondence between drawing and literature, between these two men who are united above all by the keen eye they cast on their contemporaries, painting a vast panorama of society.

Come and discover this exhibition until 31 March!

The Beaux-Arts de Paris has one of the most remarkable collections of drawings by Giambattista, Giandomenico and Lorenzo Tiepolo in France.

The study of these sheets, combined with that of a group of prints engraved by Giandomenico, as well as works by other artists, sources of inspiration such as Rembrandt, masters such as Piazzetta, or contemporaries and followers (Canaletto, Guardi, Novelli) highlights the great modernity of their art, particularly through variations on a theme, both in traditional religious and mythological subjects, and in studies of figures, particularly caricatures, but also in scenes of Venetian life.

The exhibition also explores the relationship between father and son, and the work of a family of artists.

Emile Maurice Hermès (1871-1951), the inquisitive captain who took the family saddlery business down the daring paths of leather goods, jewellery, watchmaking and silk, was the driving force behind the collection that bears his name.

Among the shelves and display cases devoted mainly to equestrian themes, you can discover some of his finest drawings, sketched on the roads of the Grand Tour. They include views of the Troades, races in Algiers, copies of famous antiques and moderns...

The horse, long the most faithful companion of travellers and the house's first customer, is never far away. Isidore Pils (Paris, 1815 - Douarnenez, 1875), Eugène Fromentin (La Rochelle, 1820 - La Rochelle, 1876) and Auguste Raffet (Paris, 1804 - Genoa, 1860), among others, painted their portraits on the most beautiful roads of the Mediterranean.

Auguste Raffet (Paris, 1804 – Gênes, 1860) Dames italiennes, sans date, Graphite, aquarelle, 20 x 27,2 cm, Paris, Collection Emile Hermès, © Collection Emile Hermès

The painter Auguste Herbin (1882-1960) is the best-kept secret of the modern art adventure. Yet he played an active part in all the creative breakthroughs of the twentieth century: fauvism, cubism, abstraction.

The man who lived for eighteen years at the Bateau-Lavoir produced, in his final style, a plastic alphabet with universal appeal, and works of astonishing beauty.

The Musée de Montmartre is the first museum in Paris to organise a retrospective devoted to this tireless pioneer, who is unjustly forgotten despite being a key figure in the history of modernism.

Auguste Herbin, Lune, 1945,
Huile sur toile, 61 x 50 cm, Courtesy Galerie Lahumière, Adagp Paris 2023

Although Victor Hugo often worked with wood, incising or sculpting it, or even decorating it with drawings for his frames, he rarely used it as a support for his large compositions.

VIVEZ and MOUREZ are exceptions in his prolific graphic output, never exhibited before their appearance at the sale of the Hugo estate in 2012. They are said to have been drawn in accordance with a family tradition on table extensions.

We invite you to discover these two wood panels and several other drawings by Victor Hugo during a private visit.

Victor Hugo, Vivez, Mourez, 1856 ?
Plume et lavis d’encre brune sur trois planches de sapin. En bas à gauche, signature et datation : Victor Hugo 185. Les deux enchâssés dans un cadre en sapin. Maison Victor Hugo, Paris (c) droits réservés

A little-known and original figure in nineteenth-century sculpture, Henry Cros (1840-1907), brother of the poet Charles Cros (1842-1888), nevertheless received help and tributes from Rodin and then Bourdelle, references that gave him a choice place in the history of modernity.

With a career that was atypical from the outset, the sculptor was also a painter, renewing the tradition of encaustic painting, developing a passion for polychromy and developing new approaches and techniques for sculpture in colour, as his brother Charles had done for colour photography.

In 1884, he became the first sculptor to work with glass, inventing the technique he called "pâte de verre", and he also took an interest in the decorative arts. Lastly, he was an excellent and compulsive draughtsman, although some of his work would not be revealed to the public until after his death, thanks to the famous gallery of the foundryman A. A. Hébrard.

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs has assembled a remarkable collection of his works on paper, including most of his personal notebooks, which were kept by his family. Most of the major donations received by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs since 1914 and, in the case of the graphic arts, since 1993, have never been seen before. This monographic exhibition, presented to coincide with the Salon du Dessin in 2024, highlights this rich heritage.

Amazone, Projet de bas-relief, vers 1890
Aquarelle sur esquisse au crayon graphite © Les Arts Décoratifs / Jean Tholance