Renovating Rue de Varenne

It is believed that Colonel Thorn spent 1 million francs renovating Hotel Matignon. In today's currency, that is equivalent to 51 million AUD. It's kind of hard to take in, and puts the 'e' in extravagant. So far, I have been able to find out a few facts about the renovation. He took the advice of several Parisiens according to this:

Colonel Thorn (1776-1850) rented this hotel and had it decorated in the Renaissance style: he called on the sculptor-ornamentist Liénard, asked Henri, an expert at the Louvre, and Pérignon, whose gallery was located Rue-Neuve- de Augustins to provide them with tables.

So who were these trusted advisors?

Michel Lienard:

The ornamentist occupies an essential but hardely well defined place in the creative processes of the decorative arts world of the ninteenth century. Michel Liénard (1810-1870) takes place in the heart of the society of ornament; he is one of these curious artists, involved in many decorative fields, both turned to past and constantly looking for progress and innovation.

As a specialist of the néo-Renaissance style and ecclecticism in general, Michel Liénard collaborated with the great names of the time: the goldsmith François-Désiré Froment-Meurice as well as the furniture house of the Grohé brothers or the organ maker Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

His works are related to religious sculpture (royal chapel of Dreux, Sainte-Clotilde church in Paris), interior decoration (palace of the Ministry of Foreign Affaires in Paris) or Haussmann’s renovation of the capital. This biographical study goes along with a repertory of the artists who Liénard sees during his carrier (ornamentists, sculptors, architects, company heads) and who are often related to one another by professional and personal bonds.

Alexis Joseph Pérignon (the younger):

Perignon was a student of Antoine-Jean Gros and an art restorer and dealer. This excerpt was on another page, but I’ve repeated a small section of it here:

Mr. Thorn hired it [Hotel Matignon] for a very pretty prize and transformed it completely. The newspapers claimed he had spent over a million to ‘furnish it. “There are chairs, says Fashion, which are each worth more than 400 to 500 francs. But some salons were also furnished in Louis XIV, others in Louis XV. Henry, expert at the Louvre, and Pérignon, who had a garage in the rue Neuve-des-Augustins, had been commissioned to compose a set of pictures.

For the rest, we had abused the small salons, the boudoirs that we loved then. One of them, on the ground floor, is described to us as follows: “There are sofas, rosewood armchairs where gold circulates in the grain of the wood. Silk with satin stripes covers the furniture, the curtains are in brocaded silk, the entire hanging is of fabric and thick doors roll on golden rods, the ornaments are in lacquer and the clock in rockery.”

Henry – Louvre Expert

Henry will be hard to identify, but I’ll keep you posted.