Rothschild Salon at the Israel Museum Jerusalem – Virtual Tour

The Rothschild Salon is undoubtedly one of the most impressive exhibits in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (if not the most impressive). But how did such a magnificent salon come from Paris to Israel? Baron de Rothschild recounts in his memoirs:

It was a few years after the establishment of the state when I first met a young man, one of David Ben-Gurion's close aides, Teddy Kollek. Teddy Kollek's personality was marked by the rare blend of a man of action and a man of dreams. One of his dreams was to establish a national museum in Jerusalem, the capital of the nation.

I then told him about a treasure kept in our family – a French room from the 18th century, and I promised him that if his dream came true one day, I would send this room to Jerusalem…” Baron Edmond de Rothschild.

In 1965, the doors of the Israel Museum opened to the public, and four years later, Baron Rothschild's promise to Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek was fulfilled at a festive opening ceremony of the Rothschild Salon in the presence of the Baron and his wife, Mayor Kollek, and the Palace Treasurer. Versailles Gerald van der Kamp.

The Baron's goal in donating this room to the museum was to expose the Israeli public to classical European art, and to this end he enlisted the services of the renowned French designer Henri Samuel. Henri Samuel is considered one of the greatest interior designers of the 20th century. He created the eclectic combination of old and new in the most sublime and refined way, which was a milestone for many designers after him. Since he was the designer chosen by the Rothschild family, he was also chosen to design the Rothschild Salon at the Israel Museum, after having already designed the Napoleonic Rooms at Versailles and the period rooms in the Wrightsman Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

From the Samuel Bernard Hotel to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem

The salon originated from the Hôtel Samuel Bernard, located at 46 Rue de Bac in Paris and belonged to Count Coubert – Jacques Samuel Bernard (1651-1739). Alongside the nobility of the sword (descendants of the knights), the nobility of the legislature, known as the nobility of the cloak, grew. The members of this class were mostly bourgeois and some received the title from the king, some by purchasing land and some were appointed to a position that entailed the title. Such was Samuel Bernard and in accordance with his status he began to build his magnificent house in the suburb of Saint-Germain. The original house that stood on the site was built by Louis de Pourcroix and was connected to the Hôtel de Verty that was located there. The new addition, in the center of which was the large salon on the ground floor, is attributed to the architects Beaupren or Opénor.

Samuel Bernard was a patron of the arts through his support of artists and the purchase of many works of art, this conduct caused him to spend his life in poverty and upon his death in 1739 his house and collections were put up for sale. Over the years the house changed hands many times until in 1880 part of it was demolished in favor of the widening of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, the decoration of the house was purchased by the antique dealer Montavalle who sold it to Baron Edmond de Rothschild who installed them in his house – Hôtel Pontalba at 41 Faubourg Saint Honore in Paris. The plot on which Hôtel Pontalba is built was purchased in 1710 by Henri François d'Agosso, Chancellor France Asher built his house in the open fields west of central Paris where the aristocracy and new bourgeoisie were beginning to build their estates. After his death, the house passed through various hands over the generations until it was purchased in 1836 by the New Orleans-born Baroness Micaela Almonster de Pontalba. In 1842, she demolished the existing house and began construction of the Hôtel de Pontalba with the help of architect Louis Visconti.

In 1855, the house was completed and the Baroness lived in it until her death in 1874. Her heirs sold the house to Baron Edmond de Rothschild (the well-known philanthropist), who made a thorough renovation of the house and, as mentioned, installed the living room in question.

During World War II, the Nazi occupation forces used the abandoned house as an officers' club for the Luftwaffe (German Air Force). After the war, the hotel was returned to the Rothschild family, but they did not return to live in it and rented it to the British Air Force. The hotel was then rented to the US government, which eventually purchased it, but not before the living room was completely dismantled and transferred to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. An almost exact replica of the living room remains in the Hotel de Pontalba.

The aristocracy returns to Paris

The Rothschild Salon is actually an excellent example of the changes that took place in France in the first half of the 18th century. With the death of Louis XIV The nobility, who had been obliged to live in the Palace of Versailles until then, migrated back to Paris in the wake of the Regent Louis Philippe d'Orléans, who decided to rule from the Palais Royal. As a result, they began to build themselves residences befitting their status in the heart of the capital. The Hôtel Particular was the urban version of the rural chateau. It was built in a square shape with an open inner courtyard in its center separating the street from the house itself. On the side facing the street were offices, the quarters of the gatekeepers and carriage drivers, on the sides were the stables and other service buildings, and on the back side was the house itself, with the beautiful gardens behind it. The house was divided in a more intimate and comfortable way, when for the first time each room had a defined function and purpose. In fact, this division of spaces is the beginning of the modern house. Until then, houses were divided into large, ceremonial halls that would change their function according to need, for example, a room that was used for receptions in the morning, became a dining room at noon, and a bedroom in the evening.

With the change in the purpose and function of the rooms, their size and style also changed. The rooms became significantly smaller and their size was determined by their importance and function in the space of the house. This new form of living also brought with it a new style of design. If until then there had been large, impressive and magnificent halls covered in marble and gilded bronze in the pompous Baroque style, now came the refined Rococo style, which was born in the early 18th century at the Marly Palace, quickly moved to Versailles, and from there found its way with all its might to the Parisian Hôtel Particular.

The large living room

The days when ladies would receive their guests in the "Roule", which is the narrow space between their beds and the wall (as was customary during the reign of Louis XIII) were over and the Grand Salon (the Great Salon) took its place. The nickname salonieres described the new role of the ladies who hosted the elite and the rich of society in their salons; members of the nobility, philosophers and thinkers, artists, and more. Being the most important place in the house, the salon received the most attention and became the place where interior design reached its highest level.

The living room was designed in the shape of a rectangle and its uniqueness was in the wooden panels decorated with gilded carvings that adorned its walls. Although the characteristic of the Rococo style is its asymmetry, the shape of the room and its division remained under the strict rules of symmetry of classical architecture. The lower part of the panels was decorated simply because the furniture was attached to it, it was bordered by a cornice and above it the decorated panels were installed. In the center of the wall stood a marble fireplace, above which it was customary to install a mirror with two wall lamps on either side (to enhance the light of the candles). On the opposite wall it was customary to install a console table and above it another mirror to create an effect of infinite reflection. In the center of the ceiling between the two mirrors was the crystal chandelier, whose reflection in the mirrors enhanced the lighting of the room. Tapestry tapestries and oil paintings decorated the walls and above the doors it was customary to install paintings with themes taken from mythology. The corners of the room were rounded to To give the feeling of flow that is characteristic of the style.

The panels were decorated with wood carvings in shapes typical of the style, such as curved and curled decorations, twisted foliage, cherubs, various musical instruments, cartouches (scrolls), birds, latticework, bunches of flowers, shells, wild and exotic creatures such as dragons and bat wings, and more. The connection between the panels and the ceiling was finished with a decorated cornice, the connection between the two sometimes being blurred to enhance the height of the room.

The furniture in the living room was comfortable and functional and consisted of seating arrangements upholstered in tapestry fabrics and box furniture covered with veneer and decorated with gilded bronze, such as small tables such as a card table or a table for serving refreshments, chests of drawers, clocks, etc. On the marble fireplace it was customary to place a granitura of two urns, figurines or reed lamps with a bronze clock between them. Bowie or souvenir floor rugs were a must-have item in every living room and porcelain figurines, urns, lamps and various accessories completed the look and function of the room.

Rothschild Salon – Guided Tour

The Rothschild Salon is located in the European Nationalist Art Wing of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. During my many visits to the place, I noticed that visitor traffic is low and visitors leave as they came, while apologizing that they could not live in such a house. The blame for the loss of one of the most important works of art in the State of Israel (according to Teddy Kollek, the salon was one of the reasons why the museum was built in the first place) is of course on the museum's management itself, which failed to make the salon and its many works accessible to the general public; it begins with the lack of directions to the place, continues with the very limited access inside the salon via a narrow bridge, and ends with the lack of a detailed explanation of the salon and its works in the manner customary in the world's largest museums. Also, there is no brochure about the salon in the museum shop or mention of it in books about the museum's wings.

In 1985, on the occasion of the museum's twentieth anniversary, a detailed booklet was published about the salon, its history, collections, and installation (with the help of which I prepared this article), but it has not been reissued since then, so I decided to prepare a visitor's guide detailing the many works in the salon. You are welcome to use this guide on your next visit.

Living room furniture

Seating systems

Living room furniture set including a sofa and five armchairs, France, The period of the regency. This system was used in the apartment of Princess Maria Anna Victoria of Spain, who was the fiancée of Louis XV.

The upholstery fabrics for this system were woven in the Gobelin workshop by Dubibier from the Savonnerie factory, according to designs by Antoine Coupel (the sofa back and the identification symbols), Claude Audran III (decorations), Deporte (the sofa seat and the animal patterns), and Blain de Fontenay (the flower patterns).

Tables

Framed paintings

Marguerite Françoise Bernard de Rennes was born in Nancy on 11 June 1719, the daughter of Antoine Baron Rennes, court agent to the Duke of Lorraine, and Elisabeth de Lenoncourt. She married on 11 June 1739 Charles Claude Ange Duplette, owner of the estate of Bacancourt, and died on 20 November 1742. This portrait was commissioned from Abed in the year of her marriage, as the artist was a member of the household of the Baron de Bacancourt. The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1739 and received much acclaim.

Madame de la Porte, formerly Mademoiselle Anne-Elisabeth de Coumartain, was born on 14 July 1723 to Antoine Louis François Le Pévère de Coumartain, Marquis de Saint-Ange and Roseanne de Moray, and Elisabeth de Pivet. She married on 30 July 1739 to Pierre François Jean de La Porte, owner of the estate of Massala. Nétia painted another portrait of her in 1752 as Flora.

The wall paintings (above the four doors)

As part of the division and arrangement of the decorated wooden panels in the French salon, it was customary to install permanent oil paintings above the doors, which were installed directly on the panels and formed an integral part of them. These paintings usually presented themes taken from mythologies and allegories, as was the case in the Rothschild salon, where four paintings are installed above the four doors of the salon, depicting the four continents; Europe, America, Asia, and Africa.

Detail of the pictures from the right:

The wooden boards

The dimensions of the living room are: length: 12.80 m, width: 9.60 m and height: 6.20 m (approximately 123 square meters).

The panels were originally installed in the large salon, which was rounded at both ends and was located on the ground floor of the hotel and had three windows overlooking the garden. Was the architect Beaupren en Opénor? The question remains unresolved. After 1753 the house passed through various owners and in 1880 it was sold as two units; the part containing the large salon was demolished and most of the wall panels in it were bought by Manuel, a Parisian antiques dealer. This dealer sold many of these panels to Baron Edmond de Rothschild and he installed them in the Pontalba house at 41 rue Févre Saint-Honoré.

The ground floor plan of the Samuel Bernard House, the photographs of the Great Salon in the Rothschild House, and finally the dimensions of the mirrors as detailed in the inventory from 1753 allow us to reconstruct the salon that is currently in the Israel Museum as follows:
The sides of the fireplace, both on Rue de Bec and on the Faubourg Saint Honoré, were installed as paneling in the space between the windows. The entrance door to the living room was replaced with a mirror, and the mirror opposite remained in place on the right (facing the fireplace). As for the mirrors between the windows, since the spaces had to be narrowed, they are not present in the reconstruction carried out at the Israel Museum. It also seems that the two panels decorated with symbols that were fixed between the fireplace mirror and the mirrors next to them on Rue de Bec and on the Faubourg Saint Honoré were not transferred to the museum. Finally, it is difficult to determine what was old and what was new in the cornices (cornice) in the Rothschild house in Paris, but it remained in place and was not transferred to the Israel Museum, and in its place a new cornice appropriate to the style was installed. The question mainly arises regarding the four doors, since in the plan discovered by Michel Gallet they are located at the corners of the rounded walls of the living room, but both on the Faubourg Saint Honoré and in the Israel Museum the doors were moved to different locations. It turns out that at the Israel Museum, parts of the living room's wall coverings were installed, but not the entire room.

Sculpture and architecture (on the right) – represented by a child inside the medallion; literature and lyric poetry (in the middle) – represented by a Pegasus inside the medallion as well as a symbolic description that includes a harp and two flutes and an open book with the names of Racine and Molière; martial arts (on the left) – represented by various weapons and inside the medallion a child holding a cup.

The three mirrors

There are three mirrors in the room: above the fireplace, one with curved edges, topped by an eagle, and its side supports decorated with leaves and flowers, topped by caryatids. The other two mirrors are in the center of the narrow walls; they are also curved, topped with a conch shell, and their supports are similar to those of the mirror above the fireplace, except that they reach the floor. In front of the fireplace, made of a cast purple marble with a lion's head carved in it (the original fireplace was made of the same material but decorated with bronze), are the three garden doors, between which are two arched panels with cartouches above them containing the letters SCB (Samuel Bernard, Count de Coubert). The doors themselves are also curved and topped with cartouches (scrolls) containing various birds.

Carpets

Wall tapestries, Gobelin's workshop

The Abduction of Proserpina

tapestry, tapestry, 1787 Approximately, Woven by Cosette on a vertical loom from wool and silk threads with a frame-like edge; height 3.80 from', width 3.80 from'

Prospina and two of her attendant daughters present a bouquet of flowers to the statue of her mother, Ceres (Demeter in Greek). To the right, Pluto stands in his chariot, looking at her. Above them hover two Cupids, one of whom holds a marriage torch. The pedestal on which the statue of Ceres stands bears a Ionic inscription and below it the signature of the painter Joseph Marie Vienne, 1757. According to tradition, the king used to give the director of buildings a series of tapestries. Louis XV gave his director of buildings, the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour, a series of tapestries known as "The Loves of the Gods."

The pictures intended to serve as models for the cartoons from which the tapestries were woven were already ready and were painted by four artists: François Boucher painted Venus ordering weapons from Vulcan for Aeneas, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre painted The Abduction of Europa, Karl van Loo painted Amymone fleeing from Penelope into the arms of Neptune, Joseph Marie Vienne the Offering to Cebes. These pictures were displayed in a full nodule in the salon of 1757 and were intended to be woven as tapestries in Gobelin's workshop. Over the years, several series of tapestries were woven on the theme of "Loves of the Gods," the Abduction of Proserpina in the Israel Museum being one of the tapestries from the sixth series, which was made by Cosette in 1787-1785.

The Silenus and Aglaia tapestry, like the Abduction of Proserpina, was made in the workshop of Cosette the Elder after a cardboard made by Helle, commissioned in 1763 and exhibited in the Salon of 1771. The tapestry was part of the fifth series of tapestries on the theme of "Loves of the Gods". Like the previous tapestry, this tapestry was also kept in the collection of the King and later in the collection of the Republic. It was presented as silk, along with other tapestries, to the rulers of Parma in 5 of the French Revolution. The cardboard that served as a model for the tapestry and was kept in Gobelin's workshop was deposited by the state in the Lille City Museum and is signed and dated 1771.

Decorative arts and accessories

This is one of a series of Diana's companions commissioned at the end of the reign of Louis XIV for the garden of the Palais de Marly. Some statues from the series were placed in their places but many others remained in the workshop; some statues were used to decorate the Tuileries Gardens in Paris at the beginning of the reign of Louis XV and others were placed in the garden of the Palais de la Miette. 14 sculptors worked on their creation and the series numbered at least 15 works. The statue in the Israel Museum was sculpted by Guillaume Cousteau I, but the statue was commissioned in 14 by his brother-in-law, Guillaume Ayllu. In 19 the model of the figure was lost when work on the block of marble had barely begun; Cousteau worked on the statue for two and a half years with breaks. It is assumed that it was intended for the Marquis de Marigny but its traces were lost until it appeared in the Rothschild collection.

Fireplace surrounds

Fireplace backboard

Cast iron, France, 1740 Approximately

The central subject is Hercules spinning at the feet of Omphale, on either side are two similar allegories depicting Diana.

A pair of brother dogs

Gilded bronze, France, Louis the Fifth Period-16

Two identical items consist of a table resting on lion legs and decorated with a pleated sheet, on a pedestal next to a decoration of a pomegranate lying on a large dog cushion.

Musical clock

France, End of the reign of Louis the Pious-15

Gilded bronze, The base is made of mahogany wood., Signed 'Kozer', The King's Watchmaker, A member of the court's entourage

The music box is decorated with a snail pattern and from its four corners emerges a young Triton carrying a three-armed candlestick. At the top of the clock is a crown made of intertwined ribbon.

Desk environments

Both vases are oval in shape and have a similarly decorated base, the lid is in the shape of a crown and the handles are set with pearls and designed as golden wreaths. On one side of each vase is a medallion with figures of Cupids and on the other a medallion with a bunch of flowers. The paintings and decorations can be attributed to one of these artists; François Boucher, André Vincent Verre, Chevry (the younger), Coudan and Rosa.

A standing clock in the shape of a vase; the numbers are written in enamel on a rotating ring and below are gilded bronze garland decorations and an arrow indicating the hour. At the four corners of the pedestal are supports ending in stag heads. On both sides of the pedestal are porcelain plaques depicting astronomical instruments and on the front is a figure of Cupid.

Some of the images and descriptions of the items were taken from catalog no. 259 from 1985, published by Israel's museum Text: Daniel Meir, curator at the Palace of Versailles, photos: David Harris