The Flowers of Glory tells the story of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal, at the Moulins, France Visitation Museum.
The new exhibition at the Museum of the Visitation at the hotel Demoret is amazing, by the nature of the displayed objects and their staging, in a very contemporary way.
For the tenth exhibition organized at the hotel Demoret, the Museum of the Visitation has expanded the range of possibilities.
But first things first. The flowers of glory is about the life of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal, founders of the Order of the Visitation (1610) whose monasteries welcomed all women, elderly, widowed, sick or disabled. A humble order but with creative devotion.
The exhibition shows, in an educational way, furniture and flaming achievements. See this typical chair of the bourgeois salons of the sixteenth century, such as Jane de Chantal knew before taking the veil.
“French museums have kept from that time the most beautiful objects; the humblest were thrown away and have therefore become rare. Those exposed at Moulins today were preserved because they belonged to either Francis, or Jane de Chantal, “said the exhibition curator, Jean Foisselon.
The exhibition shows many objects of everyday life: a table clock, steel knife, a cane, a chisel case …
In the first room on the ground floor, we find for example three women’s shoes – about a size 34; it was small at the time!
Three quarters of the 256 exhibits do not come from the Museum of the Visitation collections, but from still active monasteries (Paray-le-Monial, Nevers, Caen or Moulins ) as well as private collections (that of Thorens Castle Haute-Savoie, for example).
The exhibition also shows the creative work of the sisters at that time: canivet (paper cut with a knife), rolled, embossed paper … visitors also find several embroidered vestments. One of them, never exposed so far, comes from Saint-Menoux. Made of wool (ménulphienne the church was poor), it shows an amazing job on the relief, with inlay embroidery …
The Flowers of Glory is also very successful in its staging. In the first room upstairs, bright red walls and giant metal flowers are laid on the ground . We almost forget to look in the two windows.
The next room is equally dressed in metal but it is this time with decorations The impression is very positive: the visitor navigates what is the centerpiece of an exhibition that took two years of work.
(*) Open Tuesday to Saturday (10h-12h and 14h-18h), Sunday and public holidays (15 am-18h). Such. : 04.70.48.01.36.
Convenient. The exhibition book
The Flowers of Glory, is a cross biography of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal richly illustrated, whose development was funded by the monasteries Foundation and the DRAC.
208 pages; € 35; Somogy editions