Description of the attraction
The Paris Picasso Museum is located in the Salé mansion. Probably, Picasso would have liked it there - by his own admission, he loved old houses. And Sale's mansion is an old house. It was built in the 17th century by the architect Jean Bouillet for Pierre Aubert de Fontenay, who was responsible for collecting the salt tax. This is hinted at by the name of the house (fr. Salé - salty). A spacious, beautiful French-style building, separated from the street by a huge ceremonial courtyard, is typical for the Marais district of that time and one of the best.
After Aubert went bankrupt during the Fouquet trial, the mansion changed owners many times. In 1974, the house, which had already become the property of Paris, was chosen to house the Picasso Museum. The museum opened in 1985.
The museum presents about 4000 works of the great artist of all periods of his work - not only paintings, but also drawings, sculptures made of wood, metal, ceramics, as well as the personal collection of Picasso - works by Cezanne, Degas, Rousseau, Seurat, de Chirico, Matisse, primitive objects art. The museum has many works by Picasso, which he created after seventy.
How did you manage to organize such a museum? Thanks to a French law passed in 1968, according to which heirs can pay inheritance tax not in money, but in works of art. At the same time, it is not the heir who chooses what exactly from the inheritance can be set off as tax, but the state. This is only permitted in exceptional cases and only when the works of art are important to the culture of France. Picasso's legacy is just such a case.
Picasso himself once said: "I am the world's greatest collector of Picasso." The artist was not joking - by the end of his life he had amassed a huge collection of his own works. From it, the inheritance tax was chosen. The museum was replenished three times - after the death of Picasso, after the death of his widow, and also in 1992, when the state received the artist's personal archives as a gift. They contain thousands of documents and photographs and have allowed the museum to become a major center for the study of the life and work of Picasso.
The museum is now closed for renovation until the summer of 2013. Many of the exhibits are temporarily on display in other Parisian museums.
