Maison du Saumon
MonumentHidden Treasure
Au cœur de Chartres, la Maison du Saumon déploie sa façade à pans de bois sculptés du XVIe siècle, couronnée d'encorbellements élégants et d'un grand poisson taillé dans la pierre qui lui vaut son nom singulier.
© Wikimedia Commons
History
Nestling in the medieval fabric of Vieux-Chartres, just a stone's throw from Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Maison du Saumon is one of the most striking examples of late medieval and early Renaissance civil architecture in Beauce. Its timber-framed facade, punctuated by two successive corbelled storeys, offers a vertical composition of rare coherence, where the oak structure dialogues with a filling of small limestone elements bonded with earth mortar, a technique characteristic of the Chartres region. What really sets this building apart from its peers is the generosity of its sculpted decoration. Mouldings run along the half-timbering, the corner posts are adorned with plant and geometric motifs, and a large fish - the famous salmon that gives the house its name - soars from one of the ground-floor tie-bars with astonishing plastic vigour. This type of sign carved directly into the framework bears witness to a medieval commercial practice in which the image served as a signature for the activity carried out within these walls. The experience of visiting the building begins on the street: stop to read the façade like a book of stone and wood, detailing every bracket and brace. Inside, although the spaces have undergone major transformations over the centuries, you can still make out the distributional logic of a large medieval bourgeois house, organised around a shop on the ground floor and accommodation upstairs. The Maison du Saumon is part of an area that boasts some of the finest timber-framed houses in Chartres, giving visitors a coherent architectural itinerary through Renaissance houses, town houses and cobbled alleyways. For anyone interested in the urban history and civil architecture of the Loire and surrounding area, this building, listed as a Historic Monument since 1928, is an absolute must-see.
Architecture
The façade of the Maison du Saumon is a magnificent illustration of the constructional principles of early 16th-century timber-framed civil architecture in northern France. Its vertical composition is based around a commercial ground floor and two successive corbelled upper storeys, with each level slightly overhanging the one below, using a technique that maximises living space while giving the façade its characteristic profile. The oak framework forms a rigorous grid, with the voids filled by a slab of small limestone elements bonded with earth mortar, an economical and efficient local material. The sculpted decoration is the most remarkable stylistic feature of the building. The posts, bracket-links and runners are enriched with mouldings, geometric motifs and plant scrolls that are still Gothic in style, while certain details already hint at the ornamental sensibility of the nascent Renaissance. The masterpiece remains the large fish - a leaping salmon or stylised carp, depending on how you interpret it - carved into one of the tie-bars on the ground floor, an architectural sign of remarkable plasticity for a civil building of this scale. Although the façade has undergone a number of changes - the removal of secondary posts and the disappearance of mullions and transoms - its overall legibility remains intact. The interior, which has undergone more alterations over the centuries, nonetheless retains elements of the carpentry and flooring that bear witness to the quality of the original workmanship. The house is part of the late Gothic, Renaissance-influenced style that characterised the civil architecture of Chartres in the early 16th century.
Related Figures
Marchand poissonnier anonyme du XVIe siècle, commanditaire présumé de l'édifice dont le poisson sculpté perpétue la mémoireInspecteurs des Monuments Historiques du XIXe siècle, défenseurs de la valeur patrimoniale de la maisonÉdouard de Beaurepaire, érudit normand dont l'œuvre illustre l'intérêt croissant pour le patrimoine civil médiéval en FranceLouis Merlet, archiviste chartrain du XIXe siècle et historien de la ville de ChartresArchitectes restaurateurs du XXe siècle ayant œuvré à la consolidation de la structure à pans de bois
