Saint-Cloud (France) (AFP)

The severe appearance, the huge white building overlooks the Seine, a stone's throw from the Saint-Cloud bridge: the former Sully barracks has just started to transform into a "Grand Siècle museum", thanks to the treasures of the collection Rosenberg.

The academician and former president and director of the Louvre Pierre Rosenberg donated his personal collection (650 paintings from the end of the 16th century to the present day, 3,500 drawings, 45,000 works) to the Hauts-de-Seine department, owner of the former military building located below one of the entrances to the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud.

"My little idea at the start was to create a Poussin museum in the painter's hometown, Les Andelys, in Normandy," explains the donor to AFP. "There was a place for this extremely attractive museum, a disused hospital, and then we realized that the region did not have the financial structures strong enough," he continues.

"Then came the Hauts-de-Seine departmental council with (its president Patrick) Devedjian who knows the world of the arts well and who had the idea of ​​a museum partly devoted to my collection, but which would be much more ambitious ", welcomes Pierre Rosenberg.

This project is indeed "the fruit of the meeting of two 17th century enthusiasts", confirms the elected official, a great collector himself.

"The former Sully barracks, near the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, required a major project," explains Mr. Devedjian.

- "it will amuse children a lot" -

The museum of the Grand Siècle - period which runs from the reign of Henri IV to the death of Louis XIV - "will thus take the logical continuation of the museum of the Middle Ages of Cluny, in Paris, and the museum of the Renaissance of Ecouen" (Val-d'Oise), specifies the academic Alexandre Gady, responsible for directing the project's foreshadowing mission.

Commissioned by Louis XVIII, what was originally designed to be the barracks of the king's bodyguards was not delivered until 1827, during the reign of his brother Charles X, reports Mr. Gady.

In 1834, the "very classic" L-shaped building became a military barracks for more than a century, until the German Occupation, he continued.

After the Second World War, the building was occupied by the Directorate General of Aviation. The Department will buy it in 2016 for 11 million euros from the army which had deserted the premises for a few years, leaving the buildings prey to vandalism.

The cost of works and improvements to the site and its surroundings is estimated at 100 million euros, according to Mr. Gady.

The project notably provides for the complete rehabilitation of the interior of the main building, the asbestos removal of which started in January. This is where a thematic route will be proposed, combining paintings, sculptures, furniture, engravings, medals and works of art from the 17th century, largely from the Rosenberg collection.

At the rear of the building, a small pavilion called "Officers'", added in the 19th century but of the same style, should house a research center dedicated to the study of the Grand Siècle, the library which will contain the works donated by Pierre Rosenberg or a drawing room.

To all will be added a "collectors' cabinet", where private collections will be highlighted.

"My collection will be the start of this project: it will be the first collection and I hope not the last that will come to Saint-Cloud," concludes Mr. Rosenberg.

And this compulsive collector to claim eclectic tastes that are sometimes explosive: "I have a great passion for Venetian glass: I have a collection of Murano glass animals, which will also go to Saint-Cloud and it will greatly amuse them. children. "

The public is scheduled to open in early 2025.

© 2020 AFP