Apres Nous, Le Deluge  2022 - 2023

Après nous, le déluge The exhibition ends with a spectacular contemporary art commission. Après nous, le déluge is an installation produced by the Lignereux collective, the contemporary heir to Martin-Eloy Lignereux (1751-1809), the famous eighteenth century merchant. This piece, created specifically for the exhibition, echoes the luxury and excellence of French decorative arts during the reign of Louis XV. Lignereux is a collective dedicated to the creation of objets rares. Active from 1781 onwards, the ‘marchand mercier’, or merchant of decorative art objects, MartinEloy Lignereux owned boutiques in Paris and London, creating sumptuous pieces of furniture and decorative objects for the most demanding art connoisseurs of his time, including King George IV of England or Tsar Paul Ist of Russia. After lying dormant for two centuries, the creator of objets rares Gonzague Mézin brought Lignereux back to life in 2016 as a collective of artists and craftsmen and women. In this installation, twenty sculpted fountains are each reflected twice in a bed of mirrors inspired by the Bassin de Neptune fountain: once against the wall and a second time, on the ground. The work, composed of gilt bronze, porcelain and mirrors, symbolises the intellectual and creative effervescence of the eighteenth century and represents a fixed version of the Château de Versailles’ water show, Les Grandes Eaux. With this piece, Lignereux also revisits the mounted vases that became fashionable under Louis XV and that the original marchand-mercier continued to sell until the start of the 19th century.

I N S T A L L A T I O N • APRÈS NOUS, LE DÉLUGE, Lignereux, 2019-2022 — Gonzague Mézin (créateur d’objets rares), Art Plinths (carpenters), Fonderie de Coubertin (art foundry and bronze workshop), Façons Mécaniques (metal working studio), Tanya Gomez (ceramicist), Silv’Or (metal fire-gilding and burnishing workshop), Solyfonte (art foundry and bronze workshop), Thierry Toutin (bronze fitter), Ursae (goldsmiths).

Photos ©Camille Gentil @camillegentilcom