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2024
Jesmonite, resin and aluminium
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Sculptor Marion Verboom follows the framework of the artisans in the Middle Ages who extended their art of storytelling to the whole architectural structure of a column. The base and shaft of this column serve as media for a composite decoration with historical and stylistic references, crowned by a capital with medieval-inspired ornamental motifs. Figurative and industrial elements are added to these references to create a temporal montage of concomitances rather than successions.
2023
Silk sheets, aniline alcohol, rice starch, custom-made wool suit, cotton shirt, silk ribbons, zentai Lycra suit, bamboo socks, leather shoes, fibreglass and PVC articulated mannequin, ash wood articulated arms, foam rubber, aluminium and steel
Courtesy of the artist
The history of legends and folklore lies at the heart of the work of Jacopo Belloni whose leafy characters in business suits are also caught between a parody of our contemporary world and a revival of ornamental motifs from medieval architecture. As with the column statues, the human figure stretches and adapts to the monumental constraints to house a character who lends dimension to the room. The antique motif of the Green Man accompanied a burgeoning taste for hybrid figures during the Middle Ages, which the artist fully endorses, while at the same time telling the story of an increasingly naturalistic and serpentine sculpture.
2022
Airbrushed resin, acrylic paint, and silver leaf
Courtesy of the artist
This mask, made from the stretched skin of a frog, embraces a keystone with a fantastic Green Man motif. Amphibians are at the heart of Frederik Exner's work, the transformed and unstable nature of which is a continuation of the medieval symbolism of the hybrid being. A constant in medieval culture, the chimaera embodies transgression and a bridge between worlds, as evoked in the same vein by the bas-reliefs depicting wondrous tales of hybrid beings, magical concoctions and strange births.
1993 - 1997
Glass and copper
Frac Île-de-France collection
Inv. 03.685
Perforated all over and unusually large, this stemless glass by Danish artist Erik Dietman is reminiscent of the medieval form of a pastille glass goblet. Supple and organic, combined with copper elements in a work of abstract and contemporary goldsmithery, the object adopts a certain exuberance. This surreal, personified title emphasises chance encounters between objects as a creative principle, transporting this large vase from a specifically medieval form into a whimsical universe.
2025
Crystal and ceramic
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong & Co.
This reliquary is an extension of the history of these sacred objects, whose development has led to the fragmentation of the human body and the creation of a host of shrine-like, box-like and anthropomorphic structures to house its remains. Ornated and often glazed to facilitate the worship of sacred fragments, these containers contrast the rich goldsmithery with the carnal presence of the relic. The artist adopts this opposition in a refined, precious aesthetic in which the use of materials, reflecting the medieval vision of the world, overlays invisible and tangible worlds.
2024
Tin and various materials on Magic card
Courtesy of the artist
In the vein of medieval books’ legacy, Youri Johnson is an invented figure, a fiction that emerges from poems, theoretical texts and the archives of a mysterious work entitled The Secret Art of Secret Warfare, as well as from votive, romantic and medieval objects. A selection of heroic fantasy-fuelled Magic cards scatters this universe throughout the museum. The iconography here evokes the binding covers of medieval manuscripts, while the pewter decoration gives it a preciosity of feigned goldsmithery equal to the modesty of the materials used in the print box. The mysterious allusion to a book of spells perpetuates the presence of a secret compartment in the lid of the Saint Sébastien box.
2021
Concrete, steel and tin
Courtesy of the artists and DS Galerie
The use of plant decoration is a recurrent feature of the medieval period, whether it is transformed over and over again or transposed directly from the Renaissance, which rediscovered Antiquity, as in the painted motif on the apse of the chapel. Here, the stems are extended into the space to form a gentle concrete sculpture that unfurls and depicts the symbiosis of the animal and plant worlds. The visible mineral suppleness furthers the development of a décor freed from its structural constraints, reminding us that medieval nature is first and foremost a principle of growth and generation.
2024
Tin and mixed media on Magic card
Courtesy of the artist
This Wall of Swords card takes the form of a small pendant trophy, like the nearby the Enseigne à l’arbalète (Crossbow Prize). Youri Johnson selected and decorated this card in an ancient gesture of offering rewarding the powerful bond of friendship embodied by the swords. The beaded, somewhat coral-like decoration of the chain and heart accompanies the revival of the original function of these ostentatious objects, but not without adding a symbol of love for today.
2009
Ceramic and black silicone glue
Frac Île-de-France collection
Inv. 10.883 (3) and Inv. 10.883 (10)
Here, artist Richard Fauguet's assemblages of found ceramics create a strange bird from bowls, handles and vases with a kitsch aesthetic. These hybrids, made from upside-down pots, fill the display case with chimera motifs that were recurrent in the Middle Ages, and whose evocative power has endured through the ages. The work follows in the footsteps of medieval zoomorphic objects, notably for use as aquamanile, where animal forms become utilitarian in a play of symbolic and ostentatious association.
2021
Metal, ox horn, fake blood resin, acrylic paint, and thorns
Courtesy of the artist
Seemingly straight out of a video game, these containers combine an ox horn with a metal frame and are filled with fake blood. They take on the animal forms of medieval drinking cups, inherited from Antiquity, and are a reminder of their undoubtedly popular origins. Although Middle Ages craftspeople took a simple part of a common animal and transformed it through goldsmithing, Corentin Darré further extends its fantastic dimension through the romantic and bloody fiction conjured up by the thorns, the drops of blood and their metonymic title.
2023
Human blood on paper
Courtesy of the artist
The artist's blood and the motifs of alert faces on the balustrade of a marvelous medieval castle are in keeping with the symbolism of medieval church decorations and their resonance with the Christian rituals performed there. If the Eucharist is based on blood, and the celebration of the Resurrection on the stillborn lion cub brought back to life by the breath of its parents (no. 8), Alison Flora's artistic gesture expresses a desire for magical protection in a universe straight out of fantasy illustration.
2021
Aluminium bas-relief on engraved wood decorated with acacia thorns, silver chains and clock key Private collection
The Middle Ages were well aware of the symbolic value of the heart and the key, with the latter unlocking the former, whether in a lock (no. 6) or a romantic evocation. The assemblage of chains and a key, with its title evocative of a sentimental mawkishness inherited from the nineteenth century, combines with the language of medieval locksmithing and clock-making.
2024
Tin and mixed media on Magic card
Courtesy of the artist
Objects of exchange and sociability transformed into gifts, the artist's Magic cards are based on the fantasy world of a globally distributed game where iconography becomes votive in the choice of a rune or symbol. Both the dagger motif and its materiality are a counterpart to the small tin-lead alloy toys of the Middle Ages. The symbolic and ongoing power of the sword as a symbol of friendship is an extension of contemporary votive practices.
2023
Ink on paper
Courtesy of the artist
Horned, smiling, festive and seemingly boastful in the middle of a swamp, this musical creature evokes the worlds of mystery, carnival and folk festivals that we might like to imagine in the towns and villages of the Middle Ages. A contemporary twin of the adjacent angel musician, the Green Angel joins this concert of bagpipes, bells and lute in the same eternal motif of religious and everyday celebration. A symbol of transformation for the artist, the swamp represents the inversion of hierarchies and the new possibilities that the carnival could open up.
2024 - 2025
Tin and mixed media on Magic card
Courtesy of the artist
Scattered among the boxes that could contain their decks, the heroic fantasy Magic cards by artist Youri Johnson use multiple references to games and magic to create fictions based on what they suggest. As collectors' items, their pewter decorations are an extension of the treasured tastes of the owners of the boxes in the past for marvellous iconography, miniature architecture, strings of pastilles and plant motifs.
Before 1984
Bronze patina, green leather, upholstery
Frac Île-de-France collection
Inv. 84.107 (1)
Lion paws, a symbol of strength, form the legs of the armchair, mirroring the adjacent lectern, where an eagle, a symbol of Christ and the Gospel, supports the antiphonary and liturgical books. By taking on animal forms, the furniture conveys a symbolic religious or secular message in the same naturalist, simpler and purer style. In the 1950s, Diego Giacometti developed this zoomorphic chair with ancient and Egyptian influences, with a particular taste for the play of patina and colour in bronze to serve a world of fantasy.