Nice Art Museum
Nice Art Museum: Nice is renowned throughout France and Europe for its famous Promenade des Anglais and for its beaches along this mythical avenue of nearly 8 kilometers long. But, Nice is also the city of museums. The city has several dozen institutions of this kind, the majority of which are devoted to Art and Culture. Among the oldest museums in Nice devoted to art, the one of the Beaux-Arts deserves a special mention. That is why we will be particularly interested in this article.
Staying in Nice without visiting its museums is equivalent to going to Nepal without seeing Everest. However, not everyone is acquainted with this idea of artistic tourism. Nevertheless, the visit of the Art Gallery of Nice is a quite apart experience, to live absolutely, whether it is during the holidays or a short weekend in the city.
The origins of the Nice Art Gallery go back to 1860, under Napoleon III, after the annexation of Nice to France. Prior to his final assignment in the Baumettes district, no specific place was allocated to him, cohabiting for some time with the archives and the municipal library and then housing in a building rented at Dubouchage, then another located on Avenue Notre-Lady. Finally, in 1925, the collections of the museum find shelter in the villa that belonged to Prince Leo Kotchoubey, adviser to Tsar Alexander II of Russia.
The choice of the building was certainly motivated by the architecture and the style of it. Inspired by the Italian Renaissance, harmoniously composed according to the Genoese and Michelangelo models, only by its exterior, the building already sets the tone as to the beauty and originality of the works that are displayed inside.
As far as these works are concerned, the collections of the Art Gallery in Nice consist mainly of pieces from the primitive regional eras until the eighteenth century. We discover the works of great artists such as Carl Van Loo, Louis Bréa, Abraham Bloemaert and many more. The museum also exhibits a collection of nineteenth-century sculptures and academic paintings. All the artistic currents are represented: the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Nabis and Fauves and others all have their seats in the exhibition rooms on the ground floor and on the first floor of the villa.