Atger Museum Collection

The Atger Museum is currently closed.

The Collection

History of the Collection

A thousand drawings and some five thousand prints, by both the greatest names and lesser-known artists, make up the Atger Museum, Montpellier’s oldest museum, nestled among the historic buildings of the Faculty of Medicine. Its unexpected presence in this location is the result of the generosity and determination of the Montpellier collector Xavier Atger (1758–1833): it was he, in fact, who donated to the “Library of the School of Medicine,” in successive installments between 1813 and 1832, the works of art he had passionately collected throughout his life.
Housed in the former state rooms of the bishop’s palace, adorned with stucco work, on the first floor of the Faculty, the Atger Collection is a collection of great artistic interest. Given their quality, it has been said that the museum’s drawings constitute the second-most important collection in France after that of the Louvre.

Composition of the Collection

The French School isthe best represented, with several masterpieces, such as the twelve drawings by J.H. Fragonard, whose portraits (Portrait of M. Bergeret, *Le Postillon*, etc.) are particularly striking examples of his finesse and talent. Hubert Robert, M.L.E. Vigée-Lebrun, Oudry, and—for the^{17th century}—Charles Lebrun and Philippe de Champaigne, together form a rich and varied panorama.
The French collection is also characterized by the strong and deliberate presence of “several of our distinguished artists who hail from our southern cities”: 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 they are not the most numerous (136 in total), the drawings from the Italian School are nonetheless among the finest in the Atger Museum. The greatest names come together to form a prestigious collection. Guercino, the Carracci, Andrea del Sarto, and Tintoretto are just a few of the most famous. But the crown jewel of the collection is undoubtedly the Venetian Giambattista Tiepolo; with its twenty-six drawings, the Atger Museum holds the largest public collection in France of this artist’s work. In these works, he displays exceptional verve and vitality, which alone suffice to illustrate Atger’s preference for drawing—an art form in which he saw “a warmth, an energy, and an expression” rarely matched in paintings, those “colored copies.”

Finally, the Northern School brings together German, Polish, Belgian, and Swiss artists, but above all Flemish and Dutch artists. Notable examples include two drawings by Jan Brueghel (known as “the Velvet”), *Christ in the Tomb*, and two portrait studies by Van Dyck, as well as, of course, Rubens, of whom the museum owns two drawings on classical themes. Although slightly fewer in number than those of the Italian School, the landscape drawings, portraits, animal studies, and mythological scenes from 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 by Michel Serre, depicting an episode from the 1720 Plague of Marseille: the Quai de la Tourette.
Encouraged by Atger’s donations, the faculty purchased a few paintings at the time. The collection was expanded through donations from other contributors, notably the Montpellier painter Jacques Bestieu (1754–1842) and, later, Bonaventure Laurens (1801–1880). But donations remained sporadic until 2005 and 2017, when the artist Richarme (1904–1991) donated more than 80 drawings, figures, portraits, and landscapes.

Photo credits: University of Montpellier / SCDI Montpellier – Photography Department