It has been a good year for museum-goers who fancy a bit of time travel. On the heels of ‘At Home in the 17th Century’, which finished at the Rijksmuseum last month and allowed visitors to get a feel for domestic life during the Dutch 17th century, comes this exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which recreates a hôtel particulier, the kind of grand urban dwelling inhabited by aristocrats and wealthy bourgeois families from the 17th century until the early 20th century (18 February–5 July). The imagined townhouse brought to life for this show is from the 1780s, giving us a sense of how opulently an elite family might have lived – with the finest examples of wood panelling, wallpaper, furniture, clothes, silverware and more – before the ructions of 1789 and beyond. As well as displaying a wealth of material finery through more than 550 objects, the exhibition uses scents and sounds to immerse us as fully as possible in domestic life before the Revolution.
Find out more from the MAD’s website.
Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary
