Demeure
MonumentHidden Treasure
Demeure, located in Roscoff (Département 29), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Roscoff, Département 29, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.7260, -3.9854
- Mérimée Reference
- PA29000023
A jewel of the Breton Renaissance in Roscoff, this merchant's residence houses a secret treasure: 18th-century painted panelling offering rare views of the port city and its harbour.
History
In the heart of old Roscoff, a town of privateers and merchants enriched by maritime trade, stands a residence that epitomises the golden age of the Breton bourgeoisie. Built between 1570 and 1600, this exceptional town house combines the architectural rigour of the late Renaissance with the discreet richness of a carefully preserved interior. Listed as a Historic Monument, it is one of the most precious examples of the Finisterian city's civil heritage. What really sets this residence apart from its contemporaries is the presence in a bedroom on the first floor of a rare set of paintings on panelling. These panels, painted in the early 18th century when the interior was being refurbished, offer a gallery of landscapes and topographical views of Roscoff and its port at a time when the town was still at the height of its trade with England and Spain. Paintings of this kind in an urban domestic setting are extremely rare in Brittany, giving this interior exceptional documentary as well as artistic value. To visit this residence is to plunge into the intimacy of a great merchant of the late Renaissance, to imagine the commercial dealings that took place within these walls, the precious goods - linen cloth, salt, wine - that passed through the port visible from the windows. The room with the painted panelling, in particular, is a truly striking experience: you come face to face with Roscoff as it appeared three centuries ago, frozen in its colours and perspectives. The general setting of old Roscoff makes the visit even more special. Around the house, the cobbled streets lined with houses with Kersanton granite turrets and the iodised smells of North Finistère form a backdrop that has hardly changed since daring merchants turned this small Breton port into a leading commercial centre in Northern Europe.
Architecture
The residence is in the tradition of late-Renaissance Breton civil architecture, characterised by the use of local granite, a noble and robust material that gives the façades an austerity tempered by the precision of the sculptures and mouldings. The vertical composition of the building is typical of urban middle-class houses in the region, with its ordered elevations and carefully rhythmic openings. The dormer window dated 1603, an early 17th-century intervention, is a particularly well-preserved ornamental element on the façade, at the crossroads of late Gothic and Renaissance influences that are frequently found in Finistère civil architecture from this period. While the exterior of the residence reflects the controlled sobriety of the local architectural style, it is the interior that reveals the true uniqueness of the monument. The bedroom on the first floor, with its painted panelling from the early 18th century, is an exceptionally rare decorative ensemble in the context of Breton urban domestic architecture. The painted panels depict landscapes and topographical views of Roscoff and its port, providing invaluable visual documentation of the town's appearance at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. The pictorial quality of these works, their state of preservation and the uniqueness of their integration into a domestic setting make this one of the most remarkable civil interiors in Finistère. The general layout of the interior, remodelled in the early 18th century, reflects the taste of the Breton merchant bourgeoisie for refined comfort and ambitious decoration, inspired by contemporary Parisian and Nordic artistic movements.
Related Figures
Négociant commanditaire anonyme (années 1570) — riche marchand roscovite à l'origine de la construction de la demeurePropriétaire du début du XVIIe siècle — commanditaire des premières transformations, dont la lucarne de 1603Commanditaire des lambris peints (début XVIIIe siècle) — bourgeois éclairé à l'origine du remarquable décor intérieurMarie Stuart (1548) — passa par Roscoff lors de son arrivée en France, ville qu'animaient alors les négociants du même milieu
Tags
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Demeure located?
Demeure is located in Roscoff, Département 29 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Demeure built?
Demeure dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Demeure open to visitors?
Demeure is currently closed to visitors.