Maison Gérard
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison Gérard, located in Saint-Renan (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
- Saint-Renan, Département 29, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.4330, -4.6233
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00090435
A 16th-century flamboyant Gothic gem, the Maison Gérard features a fascinating bestiary of stone on the corners of its walls: crowned dragons, hooded figures and curly cabbages carved with remarkable precision.
History
Standing on the corner of a street in Saint-Renan, a small Breton town on the Iroise, the Maison Gérard is a rare architectural curiosity that tells the story, in ashlar stone, of the ambition of a 16th-century bourgeois who loved flamboyant Gothic decoration. Its unusual silhouette is striking from the outset: the canted corner is not simply blunt, it is animated, literally inhabited by a half-body sculpture emerging from beneath the roof, like a petrified lookout in its stone niche. What distinguishes the Maison Gérard from so many bourgeois homes of the same period is the density and quality of its ornamental programme. Every available surface seems to have been entrusted to an inspired stonemason: the dormer railings bristle with curly cabbages - a typically Breton plant motif - the triangular pediments house hooded busts, and the corner crowning glory is a stone dragon with outstretched wings, a fantastic guardian of the entire composition. The doorway on the ground floor will convince any lover of late medieval architecture: its frame of prismatic mouldings, its projecting jambs crowned with pinnacles and the harmoniously curved brace that joins them together are the classic vocabulary of Breton Gothic at its height, the same vocabulary found in the great parish churches of Finistère that were contemporary with this building. Visiting the Maison Gérard is like immersing yourself in Saint-Renan at a time when the town was still the capital of a jurisdiction and a bustling commercial centre, long before Brest absorbed its influence. The building is part of a discreet but coherent historic centre, which is best explored on foot, combining the visit with other examples of Breton civil architecture from the Renaissance.
Architecture
The Maison Gérard belongs to the late flamboyant Gothic style in its Breton civil variation, a style that persisted in the domestic architecture of Leon in the 16th century, long after the Italian Renaissance had begun to transform the châteaux of the Loire Valley. Built from ashlar - most likely kersanton or local granite, depending on the section - the two-storey building features a remarkably coherent programme of ornamentation. The most immediately striking feature is the treatment of the corner: instead of a simple, functional chamfer, the architect designed a sloping front enlivened by a rising sculptural composition. Successive slightly corbelled recesses progressively "redeem" the corner right up to the roof, a movement crowned by a figure emerging mid-body - the figure of a watchman or prophet - over which watches a stone dragon with taut lines, the true heraldic signature of the building. The two dormer windows pierce the roof with studied elegance: their triangular pediments, the rails of which are trimmed with curly cabbages - a plant motif typical of 16th-century Breton sculpture - end in busts of figures with hooded headdresses, evoking monks or allegorical figures. The ground floor door is framed in the purest Breton Gothic style: prismatic mouldings, projecting jambs with pinnacles, and a curved and counter-curved brace decorated with curly cabbages harmoniously linking the two jambs.
Related Figures
Le maître Gérard (XVIe siècle) — commanditaire présumé, bourgeois saint-renanais qui donna son nom à la demeureMaîtres tailleurs de pierre bretons du XVIe siècle — artisans anonymes formés sur les chantiers des enclos paroissiaux du LéonLes érudits antiquaires bretons du XIXe siècle — premiers à documenter et valoriser l'architecture civile gothique du FinistèreInspecteurs des Monuments Historiques (1932) — auteurs de l'arrêté d'inscription qui consacra la valeur patrimoniale de la maison
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison Gérard located?
Maison Gérard is located in Saint-Renan, Département 29 department, Bretagne region, France.
When was Maison Gérard built?
Maison Gérard dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Maison Gérard open to visitors?
Maison Gérard is currently closed to visitors.