Renzo Mongiardino's Masterpiece

Born in 1916, Renzo Mongiardino was surrounded by memories of the pre-industrial world, yet as he entered the Polytechnic of Milan in 1936 to study architecture, the future was at his doorstep.  By bridging two worlds - celebrating the past and the lessons of the ancients while having a clear vision of the future - he created a timeless artistry that became his signature, and his lessons are poignant and relevant even today, many years after his death.

The project that best defines Mongiardino’s world is an exception in history, a place that easily could never have existed, but I am so grateful it did: the apartments of Guy and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild at the Hôtel Lambert on Île Saint-Louis in Paris.

Guy de Rothschild was the scion of the French Rothschild banking dynasty. His family had been collecting great art since the 18th century, and his childhood home, Château de Ferrières, boasted an old world luxury that was grander than most monarchs. 

In his 1985 autobiography, The Whims of Fortune, Guy de Rothschild describes his family’s taste:

“Their styles of living, however, as well as their choices of homes and art, are remarkably similar.  The emphasis put on beauty, the importance given to quality, to elegant hospitality, are characteristic of a family tradition that gives precedence to refinement over luxury.”

After their marriage in 1957,  Marie-Hélène took her place as the acknowledged ‘Queen of Paris’.  With great style, charisma, and wealth, her legendary parties and early support of Yves Saint Laurent changed fashion history.

With unparalleled taste and incredible generational homes, Guy and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild had no need for a new chateau in Paris, so what brought Renzo Mongiardino and the Rothschild’s together?

Four events coincided in 1975 to bring Renzo Mongiardino into their lives: the rent challenges of the current tenant of the Hôtel Lambert, the death of Guy’s mother, the recovery of stolen art, and a visit by Marie-Hélène to one of the Agnelli properties in Turin.

Let’s begin with the rent challenges of Baron Alexis de Redé, the lover of the unfathomably wealthy Chilean Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, who had begun renting the Hôtel Lambert in 1949 and eventually become its principal tenant.  He was one of Guy and Marie-Hélène’s closest friends, and as Guy describes it:

“He occupied one floor, the one containing the most handsome salons and the famous Gallery of Hercules. During almost thirty years of residence, he had resuscitated the eighteenth-century ‘palace,’ restoring the building itself and the paintings, tracking down the original decorative elements whenever possible (some panels were now in the Louvre, including those of the Salon de l’Amour), or unearthing period paneling and paintings that could replace them.”

After the death of Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, Baron Alexis de Redé became best of friends with Marie-Hélène, and in his own words describes the fateful day in 1975:

“The most astounding result of this friendship was the idea that the Rothschilds might buy the Hôtel Lambert. In 1975 Marie-Hélène lunched with me and I told her that the Czartoryskis were attempting to evict me from my rooms. 'I don't know why we don't buy it, she said as we reached the cheese. Hardly had she had the idea than she telephoned Guy at the bank.

'Do you feel young enough and romantic enough to change the course of your life in the space of two hours?' she asked him.

'Why not?' answered Guy a little nervously. So they bought the Lambert and sold their house in the rue de Courcelles.

Marie-Hélène was delighted that I could stay on in my rooms, and proceeded to gather several other Rothschilds and their treasures under one roof at the Lambert. Furniture and paintings were moved in from Ferrières, including The Astronomer by Vermeer.

Guy will never forget that afternoon. It was not easy, it was not cheap, but it was worthwhile. Eight Czartoryskis had to be bought out.”

Not only did the Rothschild’s sell their Parisian home on Rue de Courcelles, but Guy had also decided that since the death of his mother, Baroness Germaine de Rothschild (née Halphen), it was now time to close Château de Ferrières.

The collections of Rue de Courcelles and Château de Ferrières were soon joined by the art collection of Guy’s grandfather Alphonse "which had been recovered from Germany after the war, thanks to the efforts of the American and French find arts officers, who tracked down the works where they were hidden.”

And earlier in the year, Marie-Hélène visited her friends Gianni and Marella Agnelli at one of their homes in Turin. She must have been impressed with the interior design work that Mongiardino had done there, because he was soon hired.

It was still 1975 and now time for Mongiardino to create the new Rothschild home.

Guy however, was not invited to help. 

“While the work was going on, Marie-Hélène asked me to stay away from the rue Saint-Louis-en-l’lle.” Until “at last the day arrived when I received an official invitation. I was admitted to the sanctuary. Everything had been prepared to enchant and astonish me, even to lighted candles in all the candelabra.”

The surprise would be worth waiting for.

“What a dazzling sight! What delight to find these paintings, these objects I'd always known, in this unique setting, new to me, but already familiar!” Guy exclaimed.

“Within a year they produced a veritable resurrection of the seventeenth century. The decoration of each room was planned in consideration of the works of art each one would contain, so that every item of the collection would seem to have remained in its original setting.

All of these objects, these persons, really seemed to have begun a new life.”

Most striking was his new relationship with the portrait of his great-grandmother Betty by Ingres, in Guy’s own words:

“Betty, the niece and then the wife of James, mother of Alphonse . .. how many different lives had she lived, in how many different rooms, how many different family homes, to how many of my ancestors had she addressed her wistful smile? What ties bound me to her What new ties would we form?

'The strange life of objects ...'

It's quite true that the Betty of Ferrières did not exactly resemble the one on the rue de Courcelles, who was not precisely the same Betty as the one in the Salon de l’Amour...

'Not quite the same, nor quite another … Another pose, another look, another wistful smile.'"

Years later, another interior designer, Mark Hampton, captured his impressions:

“If the ancient purpose of palace decoration was to subdue subjects and rivals alike, how that practice worked becomes very clear.

The atmosphere, however, is one of pleasure, not of oppressive grandeur.

All the Sèvres and Majolica, Augsburg gold, and old master paintings in the splendid historic architecture of Le Vau is neither overshadowed nor underplayed by Mongiardino's decoration.

He possesses a rare sympathy for palace decoration, nowhere more splendidly revealed than in the Rothschild rooms of the Hôtel Lambert.”

Mongiardino had created a new world that upheld the tastes of the Rothschilds, celebrated their art, and amazed them.  It was a masterpiece.