On the occasion of the major antiques fair, FAB Paris, from November 22 to 27 at the Grand Palais – and for which we are partners – LUXUS MAGAZINE offers you this interview with Oriane Beaufils, curator of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, which appeared in our last Autumn-Winter 2024 issue. FAB Paris will be the opportunity to see for the first time rare works of art that belonged to the Baroness and are usually jealously guarded in her seaside villa. Tickets can be won until November 15 on our Instagram page!
Oriane Beaufils spent four years working for the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s. After eight years as curator of Renaissance paintings and decors at the Château de Fontainebleau, this architecture enthusiast was appointed curator of one of the most beautiful cultural sites on the Côte d’Azur last February: the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, located in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
The Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild will be exhibiting some of its 5,000 works at FAB Paris. You have until tomorrow, November 15, to win your tickets to FAB Paris via our big Instagram competition.
This interview is taken from Luxus Magazine N°9, Autumn-Winter 2024.
LUXUS MAGAZINE: What does it mean to you to be appointed head of such a fine Maison, both architecturally and culturally?
Oriane Beaufils: I’m a Renaissance historian and I love architecture. I’ve always wanted to work in places that weren’t just museums, but places inhabited by architects, clients and materials, whether it be stone at Fontainebleau or cement at the Villa Ephrussi. The Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild is a catalog of Renaissance architectural forms. The southern façade is a Venetian palace, while the entrance is a church in the flamboyant Gothic style of Normandy. It’s also a Florentine church, reminiscent of certain Florentine fortified palaces.
Oriane Beaufils, curator of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild © Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
LUXUS MAGAZINE: How does this new position differ from your previous experience, even if it’s still in the field of culture and art?
Oriane Beaufils: This appointment represents a turning point in my career. After eight years at the Château de Fontainebleau, I was looking for a new challenge. The Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild will be taken over by the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2023, so the relationship between public and private has really changed. The Villa now functions entirely as a public service, a mission in which I believe and which I serve. I’m very happy that there has been this change in governance. The Baroness de Rothschild bequeathed this villa to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in April 1934, and it was only right that the latter should take direct control of it. This appointment was first and foremost a new challenge, insofar as the villa had both the advantage and disadvantage of never having undergone a major restoration, either architecturally or in terms of its collections. Given the amount of work to be done, it promises to be a complex task, but also a formidable one, given all the objects that have remained intact and virtually untouched. In Fontainebleau, I worked in the castle of all the kings of France: 34 kings and 2 emperors, to be exact. Here, there’s only one person, a woman, who has decided everything. I like the idea of the coherence of a group.
LUXUS MAGAZINE: How would you define Rothschild Taste, and what is its place today within the Villa Ephrussi and design in general?
Oriane Beaufils: The Villa Ephrussi and its collection symbolize the Rothschild Taste. On the outside, the Villa Ephrussi displays an architectural style on each façade, which is already very Rothschild in spirit. The Rothschilds were stockbrokers who settled on a street in Frankfurt’s Jewish ghetto: travel, and therefore the curiosity reflected in the building’s architecture, were part of their ethos. Inside, the Rothschild taste consists of eclecticism, pomp and an abundance of objects, all of which go hand in hand with the idea of important provenance. The Villa Ephrussi is home to a small painting of the Château de Fontainebleau, a fragment of a copy of the Grande Singerie from the Château de Chantilly, an urn belonging to Madame de Pompadour and diplomatic gifts in Sèvres porcelain… These are objects that have traveled, that have lived, a little like the messages or coins that the Rothschilds circulated in the 19th century, before they truly structured themselves as bankers. The Villa, as it stands today, is not necessarily fully representative of the Rothschild group, insofar as many objects have been placed in storage or are no longer on display. Nevertheless, its potential for “re-rothschildization” – i.e., exhibiting more objects in the rooms, associating them with each other in a decorator’s eye – is proving very significant. This is the case, for example, of French designer Eugène Lami, who worked on the Château de Ferrières and the Chantilly estate, among others. He staged all the objects in his buildings like a theatrical set. Over the years, the various Rothschilds have also commissioned decorators. For my part, I’ve tried to instill this style and decorating taste, not only by enriching the Villa but also by enlisting the help of experts and aesthetes such as Jacques Garcia, in order to restore the Villa’s interiors to their former glory.
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, Juillet 2005 © C. Recoura/Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
Click here to read the entire article on Luxus Magazine
Featured Photo: © Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
