Image: Musée Fabre, Montpellier
Musée Fabre in Montpellier is using the temporary absence of one of its artworks to reframe a summer display around Alexandre Cabanel’s 'Le Paradis perdu'. In the museum’s new notice, the presentation 'Un ange de parti, un paradis de retrouvé' explains that 'L’Ange déchu' has left for the musée Thomas Henry in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, where it is included in the exhibition 'L'Ange de la Révolte. Satan dans les arts au XIXe siècle'. Its departure has opened a place in rooms 34 and 35 for 'Étude pour l'Ève du Paradis perdu', a recent acquisition that entered the collections through a generous donation.
The museum describes the new hanging as a thematic accrochage centered on the 'Paradis perdu' decorative cycle Cabanel made for King Maximilian II of Bavaria. According to the museum’s account, the work was commissioned in Munich, shown in Paris at the 1867 Exposition universelle, and later destroyed in the bombings of 1945. The museum says that only the preparatory studies survive today, and that Musée Fabre holds the majority of them, which preserves the memory and scope of the lost decorative project.
The notice places the newly acquired study in relation to those other drawings, presenting them together as part of Cabanel’s artistic process. Musée Fabre says the comparison helps show how the artist developed one of his most ambitious decorative programs and how the surviving studies continue to document that ambition. The museum also frames the acquisition as part of its broader focus on Cabanel, an artist it says it has followed closely through collecting.
The online text is both an announcement and a short curatorial argument. It emphasizes that the surviving studies are not secondary material but the main evidence for a monumental ensemble that no longer exists. It also notes that Cabanel remained faithful to a tradition of beauty, language that the museum uses to situate the summer presentation within the artist’s larger reputation.
The new display is in place for the summer in rooms 34 and 35 at Musée Fabre. The museum’s notice does not give a closing date for the hanging, but it places the presentation in the context of the temporary loan of 'L’Ange déchu' to Cherbourg-en-Cotentin and the addition of the newly acquired study to the galleries.
The same newsletter issue also notes other museum updates, including an installation devoted to Pierre Paulin’s 'Vidéo Barnum' within the exhibition 'Le design selon Pierre Paulin', as well as a separate display of two lacquered panels from the Hôtel de Lunas. Those items are listed alongside guided visits, family activities and workshops, but the museum’s 'Un ange de parti, un paradis de retrouvé' notice is focused on Cabanel and the study now on view in Montpellier.
