Atger museum fund

The Musée Atger is currently closed.

The collection

History of the collection

One thousand drawings and some five thousand prints, signed by the greatest names as well as lesser-known artists, make up the Musée Atger, Montpellier's oldest museum, nestled in the heart of the historic buildings of the Faculty of Medicine. Its unexpected presence here is the result of the generosity and determination of Montpellier collector Xavier Atger (1758-1833): it was he who donated the works of art he had passionately collected throughout his life to the "library of the School of Medicine", in successive deliveries between 1813 and 1832.
Housed in the bishop's former ceremonial rooms, decorated with gypseries, on the second floor of the Faculty, the Atger collection is of great artistic interest. It has been said that, given their quality, the museum's drawings form France's second-largest collection after those of the Louvre.

Collection composition

The French School isthe best represented, with a number of masterpieces, such as the twelve drawings by J.H. Fragonard, whose portraits (Portrait de M. Bergeret, Le Postillon, etc.) bear particular witness to his finesse and talent. Hubert Robert, M.L.E. Vigée-Lebrun, Oudry, and for the ^17thcentury Charles Lebrun or Philippe de Champaigne, make up a rich and varied panorama.
The French collection is also characterized by the strong, deliberate presence of "several of our distinguished artists, to whom our southern cities gave birth": Sébastien Bourdon from Montpellier, Charles Natoire from Nîmes (of whom the museum owns 67 drawings) and Pierre Puget from Marseille are just a few examples.
Although not the most numerous (136 in all), drawings by the Italian School are nevertheless among the finest in the Musée Atger. The greatest names come together to form a prestigious group. Le Guerchin, the Carracci, Andrea del Sarto and Tintoretto are just some of the most famous. But the jewel in the crown is undoubtedly the Venetian Giambattista Tiepolo; with his twenty-six drawings, the Musée Atger possesses the most important French public collection of this artist. Tiepolo's drawings are of exceptional verve and vivacity, and suffice to explain Atger's preference for drawing, an art form in which he saw "a warmth, energy and expression" rarely matched in paintings, those "colored copies".

Finally, the Ecole du Nord brings together artists from Germany, Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, but above all from Flanders and Holland. These include two sheets by Jan Brueghel (known as de Velours), Christ at the Tomb and two portrait studies by Van Dyck, and of course Rubens, whose museum owns two drawings with classical themes. A little less numerous than those of the Italian School, the drawings of landscapes, portraits, animals or mythological scenes by the Northern School are nonetheless of great finesse and remarkable artistic interest.
Added to this collection are prints, often preserved in voluminous albums, and some thirty paintings, the most striking of which is Michel Serre's depiction of an episode in the Marseilles plague of 1720: the Quai de la Tourette.
Encouraged by Atger's donations, the faculty purchased a number of paintings at the time. The collection was completed by other donors, notably Montpellier painter Jacques Bestieu (1754-1842) and later Bonaventure Laurens (1801-1880). Donations remained sporadic, until 2005 and 2017, when the artist Richarme (1904-1991) donated over 80 drawings, figures, portraits and landscapes.