Musée de la Vie romantique

The Musée de la Vie romantique is a literary and art museum dedicated to the culture of the first half of the nineteenth century. It is one of three literary museums in Paris, alongside the Maison de Balzac and the Maison de Victor Hugo. Located at the foot of Montmartre hill in the Nouvelle Athènes quarter of the 9th arrondissement, the institution preserves the atmosphere of the Romantic era. It has been managed by the public administrative entity Paris Musées since January 1, 2013, and is one of the fourteen museums operated by the City of Paris.

The property remained in private hands through the female descendants of painter Ary Scheffer and philosopher Ernest Renan for over a century. In 1956, Scheffer's great-grandniece Corrie Siohan and her husband composer Robert Siohan sold the enclosure, known as the enclos Chaptal, to the French state for one symbolic franc, retaining life use of the left wing. Encouraged by Culture Minister André Malraux and Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, the buildings were listed in the supplementary inventory of historic monuments in 1956, and management was entrusted to the City of Paris. After Corrie Siohan's death, the site opened in 1983 as the Musée Renan-Scheffer under the custody of the Musée Carnavalet. Directed by Anne-Marie de Brem, the museum underwent an extensive renovation by decorator Jacques Garcia and reopened in 1987 as the Musée de la Vie romantique. Daniel Marchesseau was appointed director in late 1998, significantly expanding attendance from 18,000 to 145,000 by 2010 through ambitious exhibitions and acquisitions. He retired in 2013, succeeded by Jérôme Farigoule and later Gaëlle Rio in 2019. The museum closed for a 3.8 million euro renovation in September 2024, scheduled to reopen on February 14, 2026.

The museum's collections were established through a combination of deposits, legacies, and active acquisitions. The initial Ary Scheffer fonds came primarily from deposits by the Musée Carnavalet and the Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, supplemented by loans from the Dordrecht museum where the core of Scheffer's studio was bequeathed by his daughter in 1898. The museum received full ownership of the Siohan legacy in 1991. In 1995, Pierre Bergé donated a collection of Romantic memorabilia previously assembled by Jacques Chazot, centered on figures like La Malibran, George Sand, and Sarah Bernhardt. Further acquisitions in 2012 enriched the collection around the actress Rachel. The scientific apparatus includes family archives of Ernest Renan and Jean Psichari, drawings by Ary Renan, and a major donation of reference works on George Sand from the family of scholar Georges Lubin following his death in 2000.

The ground floor is dedicated to the novelist George Sand, displaying furniture, jewelry, household items, and portraits from her Nohant estate, which her granddaughter Aurore Lauth-Sand bequeathed to the City of Paris in 1928 with usufruct. Notable Sand memorabilia includes plaster casts by Auguste Clésinger of the writer's right arm and Frédéric Chopin's left hand, alongside her rare watercolours called dendrites. The upper floor focuses on Ary Scheffer and his contemporaries, featuring Scheffer's portraits of Pauline Viardot, Queen Marie-Amélie, Princesse de Joinville, and Princesse Marie d'Orléans, as well as his oils of The Giaour, Faust and Marguerite, and Effie and Jeanie Deans. Works by contemporaries include paintings by François Bouchot, Louis Hersent, and Camille Roqueplan, and sculptures by Bartholdi, David d'Angers, Jean-Jacques Feuchère's Satan, and Marie d'Orléans's plaster La Chasse au faucon. The museum also holds portraits and materials related to Ernest Renan.

The museum is housed in the hôtel Scheffer-Renan, an 1830s hôtel particulier located at 16 rue Chaptal. It represents one of the last examples of an artist's house from the Restoration and July Monarchy periods. Situated at the end of a path in a secluded garden filled with centenarian trees, roses, and fuchsias, the property includes the main pavilion, former painting studios that now host temporary exhibitions, and a greenhouse accommodating a tea room. During the nineteenth century, Scheffer and his daughter Cornélia hosted famous Friday evening salons here, attended by neighbors George Sand and Frédéric Chopin, as well as Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Alphonse de Lamartine, Franz Liszt, Gioacchino Rossini, Pauline Viardot, and later Ivan Turgenev, Charles Dickens, and Charles Gounod. The exhibition spaces were further renovated in 2003 by decorator François-Joseph Graf.

The museum is located at 16 rue Chaptal in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, situated within the Nouvelle Athènes neighborhood. It operates as a municipal institution belonging to the City of Paris and is one of the fourteen museums managed by the Paris Musées public administrative establishment. The site serves as a heritage space preserving the atmosphere of nineteenth-century bourgeois salons, while its former artist studios are dedicated to hosting temporary exhibitions organized roughly twice a year. The museum also provides public access to its garden and the tea room installed in the greenhouse.