The Taste of the Orient: Georges Marteau collector

The legacy made to the national museums by the engineer and heir to the firm Grimaud Georges Marteau (1851-1916) lies at the crossroads of three worlds: playing cards, Japonism and the art of the Persian book. They are also three parts of the collection nowadays dispersed between different institutions. Linked to their owner's unique itinerary and reflecting the spirit of an era that was enthusiastic about the arts of the East, they will be brought together during the exhibition through a selection of works from the Louvre Museum, the National Library, the Musée Guimet and the Musée des Arts décoratifs. The art of the Persian book, which fascinated Georges Marteau in the last years of his life, will have a special place there. At the beginning of the 20th century, the enthusiasm of a small community of merchants, amateurs and scientists, including Georges Marteau, contributed to the recognition and study of this art. It also leads to the dismantling of certain units. A few pages that belonged to the French jeweller Henri Vever and that form a pair with pieces of the Hammer Legacy kept at the Louvre, will bear witness, while temporarily erasing it, to this irreversible dispersion.
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