Patronage

The Olivier Berni Intérieurs decoration firm has been participating since the mid-2010s in enriching French and European museum collections through patronage operations.

Our agency regularly donates artworks and historical pieces to institutions as varied as “La Piscine” in Roubaix, the “Royal Museum of Art and History” in Brussels, the “Château de Versailles,” the “Château de Fontainebleau,” “La Banque” in Hyères-les-Palmiers or the “Louis-Philippe Museum” in Normandy.

Louis-Philippe museum – Château d’Eu (donation in 2023)

Olivier Berni Intérieurs offered the museum of the city of Eu 2 plates and 2 cups in Sèvres porcelain belonging to the Offices service. These pieces, stamped Château d’Eu and monogrammed in blue with LP under a royal crown, date from 1846.

The château d’Eu, which notably houses the Louis-Philippe Museum, was built in the 16th century by Henri de Lorraine, third Duke of Guise, and embellished in the following century by the Grande Mademoiselle, the famous cousin of Louis XIV. The 19th century appears as a prosperous period for the château. It was enlarged by Fontaine on behalf of King Louis-Philippe then restored and decorated by Viollet-le-Duc for the Count of Paris. Since 1973, the château d’Eu houses the Town Hall and the Louis-Philippe Museum. The latter brings this royal residence back to life through collections bringing together furniture, porcelain, goldsmithery, paintings, and historical memorabilia attached to Louis-Philippe and his family.

Le Grand Trianon - Château de Versailles (donation in 2021)

The Olivier Berni Intérieurs decoration firm chose to support the Château de Versailles by helping it enrich its collections with 3 pieces of Louis-Philippe tableware belonging to the Princes and Officers services. These pieces, along with other elements from Louis-Philippe’s table services at the Grand Trianon, are presented in the porcelain corridor behind the bedroom-cabinet of the King of the French.

The “Versailles, Grand Trianon” guide (by Benoît Delcourte, “Réunion des Musées Nationaux” ed. / 2023) offers, on page 93, a view of the bathroom opening onto the presentation corridor of the Louis-Philippe tableware in question. This is where visitors find the pieces offered by Olivier Berni Intérieurs. A complete chapter of this same guide also focuses, on page 100, on “Porcelain Services in the palaces of the July Monarchy.” One of these 3 pieces offered by the decoration firm is a superb decoction pot from the Royal Manufactory of Sèvres, dated 1845 and intended for the princes’ service (“Versailles, Grand Trianon,” p. 101).

It seemed all the more important for Olivier Berni Intérieurs to enrich the Louis-Philippe collections of the Château de Versailles as the most recent restoration of a historical space undertaken by the Château is precisely the Louis-Philippe apartment at the Grand Trianon. This apartment with the king’s bedroom-cabinet has indeed recently been refurnished. Note that this was both a place of rest and work for Louis-Philippe. He worked there extensively, which allowed him to be close to his major project of the historical museum of Versailles.

Château de Fontainebleau (donations in 2018 & 2021)

Olivier Berni Intérieurs donated Louis-Philippe tableware pieces to the Château de Fontainebleau in two phases. Its first donation, completing the so-called Princes service, was presented to the public from November 3, 2018, to February 4, 2019, with the exhibition “Louis-Philippe at Fontainebleau. The King and History.”

The so-called Princes service, in white porcelain with gold ornaments, whose myrtle or ivy frieze decoration dates from the First Empire, was delivered for the château’s dining service in 1819, at the request of Louis XVIII. It was intended for the table of the Dukes of Angoulême and Berry during hunting stays. At the same time, the governor’s service was sent, in white porcelain with blue monogram. The 2634 pieces that make up the Princes service passed through the Sèvres manufactory in December 1820 to have the red mark of the château de Fontainebleau affixed. The vegetal frieze adorning the rim of flat tableware and the lip of shaped pieces is completed by the king’s monogram under crown, made by printing. When Louis-Philippe acceded to the throne, the service was available in storage. The emblems of the previous reign were carefully erased in 1831 to be replaced by the crowned LP monogram, framed by oak and laurel branches.

In 2021, the Olivier Berni Intérieurs agency completed this donation with an additional lot of 17 pieces of tableware. Thus entered the collections of the Château de Fontainebleau elements from Louis-Philippe’s services called Chasses, Princes, Officers and Offices.

Musée d'art et d'industrie André Diligent – Roubaix (donation in 2014)

The Olivier Berni Intérieurs decoration firm chose to support the André Diligent Museum of Art and Industry, better known as La Piscine in Roubaix, by helping it enrich its 20th-century art collections. The agency thus donated in 2014 a terracotta entitled “The Thinker” by sculptor Pierre le Faguays.

Le Faguays was a student of Vibert at the Geneva School of Fine Arts where he worked with various editors including Max Le Verrier, the Susse foundry, Etling, or the nephews of J. Lehman. His style is close to that of Art Deco sculptor Demetre Chiparus. He participated in 1922 in his first exhibition at the Salon of the Society of French Artists. He received an honorable mention there in 1926 and another honor mention, in the Sculpture section, in 1927. He is the author of the group, in collaboration with Marcel Bouraine, “Stele and Evolution.” This was an opportunity for him to collaborate with artists Sibyle May and Edouard Cazaux. Very prolific, Le Faguays’s work addresses materials as varied as marble, stone, terracotta, bronze, ivory, or alabaster. He drew inspiration notably from “Tanagra” statues. Le Faguays is also known for art casting creations under different pseudonyms such as Guerbe and Fayral. He presented in Paris two groups of sculptures in A. Goldscheider’s pavilion at the Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts. He also participated as an interior architect with two monumental bas-reliefs for the civil aviation hall during the 1937 Specialized Exhibition in Paris. After World War II, he finished his career as a painter on Place du Tertre in Montmartre, Paris.