Drawing Of The “facade Rue Du Lycée” Of The Palace Of Fine Arts In Nantes.

"Facade rue du Lycée" of the Palace of Fine Arts in Nantes. Watercolor. 25.8 x 39.6 cm, mounted on a 32 x 46 cm sheet. Two small brown spots at the top right on the canopy and in the sky. The Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes (today Musée d'Arts de Nantes) is one of the fifteen provincial museums created by Napoleon Bonaparte and the Chaptal decree of 1801. With the increasing enrichment of the collections during the 19th century, the Halle aux Toiles on rue du Calvaire quickly proved to be insufficient. In 1891, the city of Nantes decided to create a Palace of Fine Arts worthy of the name and launched a competition, which was won by the Nantes architect Clément Josso, who was inspired in particular by the museums of Lille and Amiens. , with a plan organized around a patio covered with a large glass roof. The museum was built in a strategic and prestigious location: between the castle of the Dukes of Brittany, the cathedral and the botanical garden, near the high school (today Clemenceau high school), on the current rue Georges Clemenceau, which was at the time the rue du Lycée. The title of the drawing "Façade rue du Lycée", the mention "Musée" above the central door and the red coat of arms with a ducal crown on the pediment of the monument leave no doubt that this is the museum of Nantes Fine Arts. However, if the drawing is very close to the current building, it is not identical and has several differences; we do not know if it is a project submitted for competition by another architect, or if it is a variant of Clément Josso's final project.