The Musée de la Vie romantique, in the former home and studios of the Dutch-French painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858), reopens this month after a €3.8m renovation funded by the city of Paris and private donors who contributed to a fundraising campaign.
The house was built in 1830, then rented by Scheffer, who extended it. In 1956, it was transferred to the French state and opened as a museum in 1982, initially as an annex of the Musée Carnavalet. It welcomed 230,000 visitors in 2023 before closing for the refit the following year.
The refurbishment, carried out by Basalt Architecture, focused on the timber framework, roof and façades, restored using lime in accordance with traditional 19th-century techniques. Joinery and window frames were also restored. The green shutters—repainted in various colours over the years—have been returned to their original beige-brown. Gaëlle Rio, the museum’s director, says they now match the way Arie Johannes Lamme, Scheffer’s cousin, depicted them in Ary Scheffer at Work in the Large Studio at His House, Rue Chaptal in Paris, a painting held by the Dordrechts Museum in the Netherlands.
The museum building is depicted in Arie Johannes Lamme’s Ary Scheffer at Work in the Large Studio at His House, Rue Chaptal in Paris © Paris Musées/Musée de la Vie Romantique
Under the guidance of Àkiko design studio, the exhibition has also been fully renewed. Of around 2,340 works in the collection, 300 will be on display, including 70 recently restored works—among them, Scheffer’s Faust in his Studio (1831).
A film about the site’s history greets visitors in the former reception area, while the ticket office, shop and cloakroom have been brought together into former workspaces in the courtyard. Access has been improved through the resurfacing of pathways, and a new path connects the garden to the restaurant in the museum’s greenhouse. A new route through the museum features multimedia elements—music, readings, soundscapes and digital resources—that invite a poetic immersion in the Romantic period.
The ground floor is dedicated to “Romantic life”, exploring Scheffer’s artistic environment and his circle of prominent friends, including the composer Frédéric Chopin, the singer Pauline Viardot and the painter Eugène Delacroix. An entire room is devoted to the novelist George Sand.
The second floor addresses four essential themes of Romanticism: literature, the fantastic, nature and landscape, and emotion. “Romantic artists place emotions at the heart of their art—both their own and those of their subjects—whether passionate love or religious devotion,” Rio says, pointing to a recently acquired, undated painting of a praying woman by Hendrik Scheffer, Ary’s brother. Another key emotion is a sense of the sublime, often associated with nature. One painting on display by Ary Scheffer, The Tempest (around 1820), is a depiction of characters struck with fear as waves crash against the rocks.
The inaugural temporary exhibition, located in a two-storey, multi-purpose space outside the main building, will be devoted to skyscapes by Paul Huet (1803-69), a close associate of Scheffer often described as a pre-Impressionist. Inspired by the great English masters such as Constable and Turner, Huet influenced several French painters, including Camille Corot. His sky paintings will be shown alongside works by Delacroix, Paul Flandrin, Théodore Rousseau, Georges Michel, Eugène Isabey and Eugène Boudin. “Our temporary exhibitions resonate with our permanent collections,” Rio says. “This one echoes the ‘Nature and Landscape’ section and invites visitors to pause and reflect. I enjoy highlighting a single artist while exploring a subject through their perspective.”
The museum is set to reopen on 14 February. “Of course, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to declare our love for the museum,” Rio says.
