Description of the attraction
Nice Museum of Fine Arts is located in the Kochubey Palace, on the Avenue Beaumet. The palace is magnificent, and its halls contain true treasures.
The museum has mixed French-Russian roots. The idea of creating an art collection in Nice was expressed by Emperor Napoleon III during his visit to the city. For him, it was a political step: according to the treaty of 1860 with Piedmont-Sardinia (the predecessor of Italy), the territory of the County of Nice was ceded to France, and the emperor strove to look decent in the eyes of his new subjects. However, the building for the museum was not found at that time, its collection was first kept in the archives and the local library, then it was exhibited in rooms that were not very suitable for this.
In 1878, the Kochubey spouses, Prince Lev Viktorovich and Princess Elizaveta Vasilievna, an amateur composer who composed popular romances (for example, "I knew my eyes" to the poems of Tyutchev), moved to Nice. It was Elizaveta Vasilievna who bought a plot of land in Nice and started the construction of the palace. She soon grew tired of this undertaking and in 1883 sold the unfinished building to the American industrialist James Thompson. In 1925 the town bought the villa. It houses the Palace of Arts, where the museum of the artist Jules Cheret was created. Gradually, the collection expanded with donations from many collectors, and Nice acquired the Museum of Fine Arts.
His collection is spread over two floors. When entering, the visitor first of all crosses the former winter garden, which now houses the patio, and finds himself at the exhibition of primitive Provence painting of the 16th-18th centuries. There is also a large hall dedicated to the work of the Van Loo dynasty of painters. On the ground floor, you can also see the works of Agnolo Bronzino, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Abraham Bloomart, Jean Honore Fragonard. A magnificent monumental staircase leads to the second floor, which houses a collection of 19th century academic painting and sculpture, impressionists and post-impressionists. On this floor you can get acquainted with the works of Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Eugene Boudin, Alexander Cabanel, Edouard Vuillard. There are also sculptures by Jean-Baptiste Carpeau, François Rude, Auguste Rodin.
Built on a grand scale, the elegant Kochubei Palace, with its high ceilings and excellent lighting, is itself a museum piece. Its first owners, the prince and princess Kochubei, rest in the Kokad Orthodox cemetery in Nice. Walking through the ceremonial halls, one can mentally evoke these two images from the age-old darkness. The chords of the romance will be heard a little, an unknown life will rustle, in which Nice was something like a summer residence for the brilliant and self-confident Petersburgers - and again there are only silent paintings and sculptures around.
