Highlighted luxury, the Cognac-Jay Museum exhibition features 18th century elegance

It's in the wood-paneled reception rooms of the Donon private mansion, at the heart of the Marais district, that is installed the Musée Cognac-Jay, an institution dedicated to the arts produced during the Century of Lights. For the new Fall venue, the spotlight is made on the history of marchands merciers, at the same time merchants, importers, collecters, designers and decorators, who offered their works to the aristocracy.

Luxury in its purest state at the  Cognac-Jay museum in Paris

This important corporation of « merchandise vendors » entertained narrow commercial links with the best  artists and artisans in France or elsewhere. And thanks to this exhibition, it highlights a hundred superb hundred-year-old objects, official documents and archives that made Parisian fashion into a deluxe art of living and beauty showcased around the world.

Gilded bronze, bird and flowers in porcelain, this 18th century candelaber comes from the Manufacture of Vincennes. © MCJ/Roger-Viollet

In oak veneered with fruit-tree wood and in ebony, these cabinets testify to the ultimate refinement of an era. © RMN-GP (Musée du Louvre)

A stunning dreamlike setting

In this timeless dreamlike setting, you will be able to admire rare collections in a perfect state of conservation. Clocks with finishing details in gold, jewellery boxes covered with precious stones, porcelains, each piece is an emblem to the know-how of yesteryear that will undoubtedly mesmerize you …

Madame de Pompadour and the Comtesse du Barry admired this ceramic vase and this clock with columns. © Studio Sébert et MAD