Frits Lugt began collecting at the age of eight encouraged by his father. Right away he saw that he had a good eye, better judgment and a great desire to learn. At nine he already had a cabinet of objects and drawings in his room and a little sign on the door. “The museum is open if the director is home.” If that’s not early…
Over time, and with the incandescent fervor of the self-taught, this Dutchman and his wife Jacoba Klever (1888–1969) would amass one of the most robust and, at the same time, delicate collections of graphic works in the world: oil sketches, etchings, frames from different centuries and of great value, letters from Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Gauguin or Niki de Saint Phalle, as well as all known engravings by Rembrandt.
If it were for its collection alone, the little-known Fondation Custodia in Paris – Rue de Lille, seventh arrondissement – could be described as splendorous. Actually, it is much more than that because the walls, ceilings, floors, ceiling lights, moldings, tiles, upholstery, lamps, and mother-of-pearl inlays on the chairs are also works of art.
Housed in the 18th-century hôtel de ville Turgot, the Fondation presents exhibition halls open to the public while also boasting some of the most dazzling private rooms in the City of Light. Lugt (1884-1970) collected so much and so well that each of the spaces in the mansion speak a particular language and are dressed with objects and upholstery from a specific era.
Whispering in 18th-century French, the Grand Salon is clad from head to toe in neoclassical pomp: sky blue on the walls defined by Doric columns, gilt-framed paintings, coffered ceiling in gold-leaf plaster, gold-toned velvet on the armchairs and the proud gaze of Turgot Sr., Michel-Étienne Turgot, in a bust that dominates the room where the foundation’s professionals work in silence with their computers…silver.
In the dining room, with views of the garden, walnut furniture, olive green walls that contrast with the showcases on a red background where the Delft tableware shines. Another room, the adjoining one, breathes calm with its shelves full of Greek ceramics. The most austere room, in quotes, of the Turgot hotel is the Bureau du fondateur, and it makes sense that it should be more restful and somber.
The founder, who was raised in the strict Mennonite faith, wanted to replicate a 17th-century Dutch salon, far removed from the pomp of the Grand Salon and Louis XIV furniture. The fear of God is breathed in a room where the paintings are no longer golden but black or a very dark gray and the furniture is rectilinear and without unnecessary decorations.
The last tenant of the Bureau has been Ger Luijten, a full-fledged scholar who was forged in the Bojmans van Beunigen museum in Rotterdam and later in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It was he who promoted the Fondation with passion and joy for more than a decade, since 2010. His energy and wisdom suddenly went out on December 19.
If the Fondation Custodia stands out so much today, it is thanks to its obsession and passion for details. Magazine Lifestyle had talked and walked with him through the private and secret rooms of the mansion. He spoke fervently about the importance of wall color and the miracles that his two framers worked, one in Paris and one in London.
“The frame is as important as the work, to the point that an incorrect frame can tarnish it, no matter how golden it is. Sometimes, the black and less ornate frame is the correct solution”, he explained as he opened the different sliding doors with the collection of frames: the golden ones ornate with arabesques, the austere ones from northern Europe and the fantasy ones that emerged in the Renaissance in Italy and France.
Frames called cloué that incorporate wooden columns that simulate lapis lazuli or marble or inlaid with stone. The foundation houses 7,000 drawings and 30,000 engravings kept in leather albums that are 200 and 300 years old, which are a collection in itself and which sleep in furniture from the same period. Monsieur Turgot Jr., Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, entrusted a notary with the inventory of the house. It is a very valuable document to know the origin of the furniture and rebuild your library.
Luijten was very proud of how the most difficult and, surely, most spectacular space in the mansion looked: the humble entrance with a triple staircase and a barred railing that, on paper, gave little play. He got a lot out of space and if not… see the next photo.
He found the right color on the wall and placed several hundred oil sketches all together. “We did it the old-fashioned way, by grouping the paintings together,” she used to say. And as he went up the steps he explained who the authors were, more or less unknown or very famous, grouped by country.
“These are the sketches that artists from the early and mid-19th century paint on paper outdoors and whose custom will give way to impressionism,” he recalled. At the entrance is a bust of Turgot Jr. In the atmosphere the words of Luijten and the spirit of the founder are mixed, the boy collector whose museum is one of the most beautiful unknown in Paris.
