Following the exhibition Things: A History of Still Life in 2022-2023 and The Treasure of Notre-Dame de Paris in 2023-2024, the Fondation Etrillard is renewing its support for the Louvre Museum for an ambitious and stimulating exhibition: Figures of the Fool: From the Middle Ages to the Romantics, presented from October 16, 2024, to February 3, 2025, in the Hall Napoléon.
After Hieronymus Bosch, “The Concert in the Egg”, © GrandPalaisRmn (Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille) / Stéphane Maréchalle
The exhibition will explore the fascinating figure of the fool: while this figure was an integral part of the visual culture of people in the Middle Ages, it has rarely been explored from the perspective of art history. Yet between the 13th and mid-16th centuries, the notion of madness inspired and stimulated artistic creation, both in the fields of literature and the visual arts.
The Fondation Etrillard is therefore delighted to contribute to the rediscovery of the subversive and quintessentially medieval figure of the fool, through a chronological and thematic journey of over 300 works: sculptures, objets d’art, medals, illuminated manuscripts, drawings, engravings, paintings, and tapestries.
The exhibition is curated by two curators from the Louvre Museum: Elisabeth Antoine-König (Department of Objets d’Art) and Pierre-Yves Le Pogam (Department of Sculptures).
This exhibition is in line with the mission to rediscover the Middle Ages, dear to the Fondation Etrillard, which it carries out in various fields of art and humanities, in Switzerland as well as in France. This goal is notably reflected in the sponsorship of exhibitions related to the Middle Ages (illuminated manuscripts from Switzerland at the Bodmer Foundation, the Treasure of Notre-Dame at the Louvre, Charles VII at the Musée de Cluny).
For this support, the Fondation Etrillard is pleased to associate once again with the New York Medieval Society, the Foundation’s American partner, with whom it collaborated for the exhibition The Arts in France under Charles VII (1422-1461) at the Musée de Cluny.
Jan Matejko, “Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk”, Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie/Piotr Ligier