Maison dite des Cariatides
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison dite des Cariatides, located in Quimper (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
- Quimper, Département 29, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.9963, -4.1033
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00090349
In the heart of Quimper's old town, the Maison des Cariatides boasts an exceptional Renaissance façade: its sculpted 16th-century figures literally carry the floors on their shoulders, a rare example of Breton civil statuary.
History
Turning down a cobbled street in Quimper's historic centre, the Maison des Cariatides emerges like an open-air architectural curiosity cabinet. Its timber-framed façade, punctuated by figurative sculptures that seem to bear the weight of the centuries on their shoulders, is one of the rare Breton examples of humanist sculpted decoration applied to 16th-century civil architecture. It's not a monument that you visit from the inside, it's a monument that you contemplate, with your nose raised, searching in each figure for the face of a saint, an ancient god or a Quimper bourgeois who has disappeared. What radically distinguishes the Maison des Cariatides from the many timber-framed houses dotted around Brittany is precisely this skilful ornamentation on the ground floor. The piers separating the commercial bays are decorated with figures in the round or in high relief that support the upper corbelling, thus repeating the ancient process of the caryatid - a female figure transformed into a supporting column - in a commercial and provincial context. This dialogue between Greco-Roman antiquity and Breton craftsmanship is a rare and moving feat. A visit to the building is a natural part of a walking tour of Quimper's old town, a stone's throw from Saint-Corentin Cathedral and the medieval quarter along the banks of the Odet. The building has retained its residential and commercial function, giving it an authenticity not always found in monuments that have been turned into museums: here, carved stone rubs shoulders with everyday life, with modern shopfronts framing five-hundred-year-old pillars. For the photographer, the low-angled morning light on the façade reveals the relief of the sculptures with spectacular precision, bringing out the faces and drapery with a depth that would have been unimaginable at midday. For the art historian, it's evidence of the penetration of French Renaissance influences - and their reinterpretations by local craftsmen - into the merchant towns of Brittany, at a time when the province was gradually integrating the aesthetic canons from the Île-de-France and Italy.
Architecture
The Maison des Cariatides is a timber-framed building, a dominant construction technique in 16th-century Breton urban housing. Its street-facing façade is organised on the ground floor around a tripartite arrangement: a central door flanked by two large bays that correspond to former shops, in a functional layout typical of medieval and Renaissance trading houses. What radically elevates this banal programme to the rank of a remarkable work are the masonry or wood-carved piers separating these openings, decorated with figures in relief - the famous caryatids - supporting the corbelling of the upper floors. Corbelling, the technical process of projecting successive storeys above the ground floor to gain more living space while protecting the façade from the elements, is presented here in a plastically inventive way: the sculpted figures seem to visually assume the structural function of corner posts or struts, transforming a technical necessity into an iconographic programme. The quality of execution of these sculptures, with their drapery, varied physiognomies and attitudes, reveals the hand of an experienced craftsman, probably trained in the orbit of the great works of the Breton or Loire Renaissance. The materials used are those of traditional regional construction: oak for the half-timbering and the framework of the upper floors, limestone or granite ashlar for the masonry elements of the base and the decorative piers. The combination of Breton granite and carved wood gives Quimper's Renaissance homes their distinctive visual identity, which is both austere and ornate.
Related Figures
Jean Goujon — sculpteur français (v. 1510-v. 1566), père des cariatides à la française dont s'inspire directement le décor de la maison quimpéroiseCommanditaire anonyme du XVIe siècle — négociant ou bourgeois quimpérois dont l'ambition décorative témoigne d'une culture humaniste remarquable pour un édifice provincialArtisan sculpteur anonyme — auteur des figures portantes, probablement issu d'un atelier régional breton influencé par les courants renaissants ligériensInspecteurs des Monuments Historiques (années 1920) — acteurs de la reconnaissance patrimoniale de l'édifice, ayant conduit à l'inscription de 1928
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison dite des Cariatides located?
Maison dite des Cariatides is located in Quimper, Département 29 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Maison dite des Cariatides built?
Maison dite des Cariatides dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Maison dite des Cariatides open to visitors?
Maison dite des Cariatides is currently closed to visitors.