Music room

Edgar DEGAS • Danseuse regardant la plante de son pied droit

Edgar Degas was one of the few artists whose works Marcel Proust was ‘passionate about discovering’. In her "Propos de peintre", Blanche praises the realism of ‘Degas, a Parisian, who focuses on the city’s people,
the urban landscape, the opera-goer, the concierge’s daughter, the milliner, the laundress, the café-concert singer and those even lower down the social ladder; in his classical style, thus reacting against the idealistic conception of Ingres’s other pupils. ’ Like Proust, Degas takes an interest in all social classes and draws his models without compromise, with a radicalism that is very much of our time.

Eugène CARRIÈRE • Portrait d’Anatole France

Exhibiting regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français between 1876 and 1890, and later at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Carrière consistently defied the stylistic categories of his time, developing a
unique and highly modern body of work, whose simplicity foreshadowed contemporary figurative art. His paintings, rendered entirely in browns and greys, seem to skim over the forms to better bring out the truth of the faces, which in his work always appear to be in motion. His painting greatly interested Proust, who refers to him in In Search of Lost Time, when Robert de Saint-Loup sells old family furniture to buy works by contemporary painters such as Eugène Carrière.

Antonio de LA GANDARA • Femme au chien dit Portrait de Louisa de Mornand

A famous actress and the model for Rachel in 'In Search of Lost Time', Louisa de Mornand (1884–1963) was one of Marcel Proust’s closest friends; he met her in 1903 and supported her in the early stages of her career as a stage actress. In 1907, he wrote to her: ‘I am delighted to think that you are to have a splendid portrait by La Gandara. What delightful hours you must be spending; he is so interesting, such a marvellous artist.’ In 1908, it was at Louisa de Mornand’s holiday home in Bénerville that Proust was first introduced to a young publisher named Gaston Gallimard.

Antonio de LA GANDARA • Portrait de Jean Lorrain

On the morning of 6 February 1897, in the woods of Meudon, 26-year-old Marcel Proust faced off in a duel against Jean Lorrain, the famous and feared 42-year-old literary critic who had savaged his first book, "Les Plaisirs et les jours", which had been prefaced by the great Anatole France. For Lorrain, little Marcel was ‘nothing more than one of those young dandies craving literary recognition and salon success [...] To the gallows with him, sir!’. Lorrain sneered once more in Le Journal: ‘Daudet will surely write the preface to Monsieur Proust’s next book because he cannot refuse his son Lucien anything…’ This allusion to the homosexuality of Proust, a close friend of Lucien Daudet, was intolerable to him. The duel took place three days later.

Ernest HÉBERT • Portrait de Marie-Thérèse de Ségur, comtesse de Guerne

Ernest Hébert was a painter associated with the Realist movement and admired as a master of colour and composition. He is renowned for his portraits of high society. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he further developed his style in Italy. Marie-Thérèse de Ségur (1859–1933) was a friend of Marcel Proust, who dedicated one of his ‘Salons’ to her, published in "Le Figaro" on 7 May 1905: "Since the death of her father, the Marquis de Ségur […], the Countess de Guerne has been living with her husband, the Count de Guerne, in a charming residence on Avenue Bosquet — it was there that the choruses from Esther were heard for the first time, perhaps the most beautiful work Mr Reynaldo Hahn has written to date [...]”.

John Singer SARGENT • Judith Gautier à la Fourberie

A great American painter who spent most of his life in Europe, Sargent is one of the most Proustian artists of the Belle Époque in terms of his imagination and style. Jacques-Émile Blanche, Proust’s portraitist, was one of his friends, as was Manet. In the summer of 1883, in Saint-Énogat, near Dinard, Sargent met the novelist Judith Gautier (1845–1917), daughter of the poet Théophile, and lover of Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner. Sargent painted this feminist and pioneer in Oriental studies on several occasions. A member of the Prix Femina jury, she was the first woman to be elected to the Académie Goncourt in 1910. Her Parisian salon was always bustling, bringing together a veritable pantheon of authors, diplomats and artists.

Piano

This film is a parody of ‘Le mélomane’ by Méliès.
A conductor magically makes eight musicians appear as miniature characters perched on his baton. They wave, disappear and reappear on stage. The brass band marches on, then the musicians appear, tiny, at the heart of the notes of the score. For a brief moment, we see the happy faces of each of the musicians. Back on stage, the band is divided in two by the conductor and the four male figures are lined up in front of a wall with a giant staff overhead. The conductor takes hold of each of their heads, unties them and sends them to hang on the staff.

TELEPHONE

The telephone was invented in 1876 by Graham Bell. In its early days, the telephone network was entirely manual, and the connection between callers was fully electric. To make a call, the user would pick up the receiver, and then an operator would answer and ask the subscriber for the number of the person they wanted to call to establish the connection.

Symphonion

The Symphonion, a disc music box, was used to play melodies. In a way, it was the ancestor of the jukebox, since the discs could be changed manually (or, in some models, automatically).

Photo Frame

Photo Frame