Musée Nissim de Camondo

The Musée Nissim de Camondo is a house museum on the edge of the Parc Monceau, in the eighth arrondissement of Paris, and one of the most poignant places to see the French eighteenth century. The house, at 63 Rue de Monceau, was built between 1911 and 1914 by the architect René Sergent for Count Moïse de Camondo, a banker and collector from a family of Sephardic Jewish origin who had made their fortune in Constantinople and then in Paris. Sergent took the Petit Trianon at Versailles as his model, and the facade, with its pale stone and classical proportions, looks like a small palace from the age of Louis XVI, although the building has the modern conveniences of its date, including a lift and a well-equipped kitchen.

Camondo built the house to hold his collection of eighteenth-century French decorative arts, which he had been gathering for years. The rooms were designed to show off the pieces, with panelling, mirrors and parquet floors, some of them taken from period buildings, and they are laid out like a rich family's home of the time. The visit leads through the Grand Salon, the Blue Salon, the study and the dining room, and each room is furnished with works of the highest quality, furniture by the great cabinetmakers Jean-François Oeben and Jean-Henri Riesener, who worked for Louis XV and Louis XVI, tapestries from Aubusson and Beauvais, porcelain from Sèvres and portraits by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Every piece is original, and the effect is of a house that has been preserved intact.

The museum is named after Camondo's son, Nissim, a pilot who was killed in aerial combat in 1917, during the First World War. His father, shattered by the loss, left the house and its collections to the Union centrale des arts décoratifs on his death in 1935, as a memorial to his son, and the museum opened in 1936. The story has a further tragedy. Camondo's daughter, Béatrice, and her two children, Fanny and Bertrand, were arrested and deported during the Second World War, and they were murdered at Auschwitz, so that the family line came to an end. The museum records this history, which gives the visit a deep emotional weight.

The museum has been closed for a long renovation, with a reopening planned for later in the decade, so check its status before planning a visit. The restaurant and library have remained accessible. The Parc Monceau, beside the house, is a beautiful park for a walk.

When open, the museum suits lovers of decorative arts, those interested in the history of the collectors of Paris and anyone who wants a quiet and intimate visit.