The Making of the Museum of Decorative Arts

Sophie Motsch, Assistant Curator 17th-18th Century Western Decorative Arts at the Museum of Decorative Arts, will explain how the museum came to be in 1882 when a group of collectors with an interest in promoting the applied arts and developing links between industry and culture, design and production, banded together to form an organization initially known as the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs; and how In 1904 the renamed Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) moved into the Marsan Pavilion and Wing at the western end of the long wing of the Louvre alongside the Rue de Rivoli, where it remains today. With approximately one million objects in its collections, MAD is one of the largest museums of decorative arts in continental Europe. Its vast and diverse collections include, among other things, furniture, interior design, altarpieces, religious paintings, drawings, objets d’art, tapestries, wallpaper, ceramics and glassware, and toys, from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Every Thursday at 12pm Central Time in Chicago/1 pm Eastern Time in Miami/19h Central European Time in Paris – From January 11 through February 22, 2024

Following the success of Grands Châteaux of the Loire and Ile-de-France, The Making of the French Gardens and The Great Churches of Paris series of online talks, our curator extraordinaire, Russell Kelley returns to offer an enthralling new series about an essential pillar of France’s cultural heritage: the extraordinary museums that were established in Paris starting during the Revolution and continuing through the end of the 19th century. We know you will love The Making of the Great Museums of Paris!

Sophie Motsch joined the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) in Paris in 1998 as an associate curator in western decorative arts from 1600 to 1800. In 2006, she participated
in the reinstallation of the 17th-18th galleries for the re-opening  of MAD. In 2015, Sophie’s masters thesis was about the Javal collection of 18th objets de vertu, beauty casesand necessaires (small bags or cases for makeup, jewelry, etc.). A specialist in the history of collecting, her research focuses on vanities. She brought this expertise to bear on “Même pas peur ! Collection de la Baronne Henri de Rothschild”, a collection of 180 memento mori which was held at the Fondation Bemberg (Toulouse); the catalog became a sought-after book. Sophie holds a BA in English, Italian and Art History from Paris X University and an MA in Art History from the Université Jules Verne (Amiens). She lectures and teaches regularly at MAD, École du Louvre, Université de Marne-la-Vallée, and the Association d’étude pour la céramique. Sophie is a member of the advisory board of the Société de l’Histoire de l’Art français.

Russell Kelley is the curator and moderator of the past three winter’s Zoom lecture series on the Grands Châteaux of the Loire and Ile-de-France , The Making of the French Gardens and The Great Churches of Paris. He has lived in Paris for 30 years and is the author of The Making of Paris: The Story of How Paris Evolved from a Fishing Village into the World’s Most Beautiful City (Globe Pequot Press, 2021), and has lived in Paris for 30 years.

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*Through our Entrée Libre initiative, free admission to this series is offered to students enrolled in French Studies in universities and French schools in Chicago and the Midwest. Students MUST register with .edu address