This museum is about The Romantic Life, but not “romantic” in the sense of people falling in love and giving each other flowers. Rather it is about a group of artists and writers who lived in Paris during the period of Romanticism in the nineteenth century.

House of the painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858)

The house originally belonged to the painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858) and it remained the property of the Scheffer-Renan family until 1983, when it was given to the City of Paris to be turned into a museum. (Actually the city could have had it as early as 1898, but the City Council turned it down at the time so it stayed in the family for another eighty-five years.)

Painting by Ary Scheffer, La Princesse de Joinville, 1844

Besides paintings by Ary Scheffer and his brother Henri, the museum also has exhibits about the writer George Sand (1804-1876) and other writers, painters and composers of the period.

Bust of Ernest Renan (1823-1892)

This is a bust of the scholar and philosopher Ernest Renan, who married Ary Scheffer’s niece Cornélie Scheffer in 1856.

In the Memorabilia Room on the ground floor

Address: Musée de la Vie Romantique, Hôtel Scheffer-Renan,
16 rue Chaptal – 75009 Paris. GPS  48°52’51.09″ North;  2°19’59.82″ East
Website: www.vie-romantique.paris.fr

Location, aerial view and photo on monumentum.fr.

My photos in this post are from 2011. I revised the text in 2018.

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