A Discreet Collection of Curiosities: Adèle and Salomon de Rothschild’s Chinese Jades
This is our annual Woolf Jade Lecture, kindly sponsored by Jonathan Woolf and the Woolf Charitable Trust.
In 1922, Adèle de Rothschild died in her Parisian mansion of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild and all her collection was bequeathed to the French state, to create a Foundation that could support contemporary artists. Among the many works of art she collected with her husband Salomon de Rothschild, who passed away in 1864, almost 170 jades were displayed in the showcases. This collection includes magnificent Chinese jades from the 18th century, on show to the public since 2017 in the Cabinet of the Curiosities, a room that Adèle wanted to be preserved.
In this lecture, Ms Dérisson will present the highlights of the collection such as the Medicine Buddha, and the 20 belt plates in openwork jade, in the study of their provenance from the 19th century art market and the repositioning of these objects in the context of the French Rothschild’s taste for curiosities.
Image: the Chinese jade showcase of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild’s cabinet of curiosities. copyright (c) Fondation des Artistes / Barnabé Moinard
Speaker
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Éléonore DérissonChargée des collections at L’Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, ParisEléonore Dérisson, who graduated from the Ecole du Louvre in 2015, is an art historian and specialises in history of collecting and Dutch paintings. Since 2017, she has been the Head of Collections at the Fondation des Artistes where she is in charge of the heritage collections, historical buildings and archives.
She oversaw the opening of the Cabinet of Curiosities and the Balzac Rotunda at the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild in Paris, as well as the opening of the Bibliothèque Smith-Lesouëf in Nogent-sur-Marne.
Her publications include Le cabinet de curiosités de l’Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, 2017 and 2019, and Le Musée Jeanne d’Aboville de La Fère, 2018. She has also given talks at the Festival international d’histoire de l’art of Fontainebleau, Société d’Histoire de l’Art Français, Musée Condé, MAD/Musée des Arts Décoratifs, amongst others.
(image © Vanessa Silvera)
