Paul Dupuy’s beautiful bazaar in Toulouse
CRITICISM – The museum of precious arts which houses the businessman’s eclectic collection has changed its name and is reopening after three years of work. This anthology of everything and nothing is shown by theme. A relevant choice.
“To maintain in France the culture of the arts which pursues the realization of the beautiful in the useful.” Such is the slogan according to which the Central Union of Decorative Arts defined itself in 1882. The formula still reigns today over the definition of the museum royally installed at 107, rue de Rivoli, in a wing of the louver. Did Paul Dupuy know her when he started collecting?
The man is an iconoclast. Born in 1867, he owes his fortune to the export of spices and pickles to Great Britain and Commonwealth countries. He is an engineer, a graduate of the École centrale, but he does not practice. He leaves the family business to his older brother. And as formerly the youngest entered the orders, Paul enters the collection. A material quest that keeps him on the lookout for objects between Paris and Toulouse. A spiritual quest too. At first glance, you might think he was amassing, when you discover the hundreds of thousands of objects he hunted before dying in 1944. But he intends to share his…