Villa La Sapinière
Monument
Villa La Sapinière, located in Evian-les-Bains (Département 74), is a medieval landmark built in the Middle Ages. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Medieval (11th-15th century)
- Location
- Evian-les-Bains, Département 74, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 46.3983, 6.5711
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00118398
A jewel of the Florentine Quattrocento on the shores of Lake Geneva, Villa La Sapinière in 1896 brought together the greatest names in Art Nouveau: Rodin, Chéret, Bracquemond and Charpentier, to create a masterpiece of total art.
History
Nestling in the wooded heights of Évian-les-Bains, facing the blue waters of Lake Geneva and the peaks of the Alps, Villa La Sapinière stands out as one of the rarest and most accomplished examples of collaboration between architecture and the decorative arts in the late 19th century. Built in 1896 by architect Jean-Camille Formigé for collector and patron Joseph Vitta, it embodies an ideal of total beauty in which every surface, every door and every wooden panel becomes a work of art in its own right. What makes La Sapinière truly unique is the identity of its creators. Rarely has a private villa brought together artists of such stature in the same place: Auguste Rodin sculpted the stone door tops of Estaillade, animated with allegorical motifs from the Four Seasons, giving the residence an unrivalled sculptural dimension. Jules Chéret, the inventor of the modern poster, painted the murals, while Félix Bracquemond designed the woodwork and Alexandre Charpentier designed the furniture in the billiard room - a room worthy of a museum in its own right. A visit to the villa is like plunging into the world of the great private commissions of the Belle Époque, halfway between Florentine refinement and the decorative audacity of the nascent Art Nouveau movement. The interior volumes, orchestrated with skilful precision, interact with the light from the lake that filters through the fir trees that give the property its name. Each room reveals a new facet of this collective aesthetic ambition. The outdoor setting adds to the enchantment: the park planted with conifers, which gives the villa its poetic name, blends into the lake and Alpine landscape that made Évian-les-Bains one of the most popular holiday resorts for the European aristocracy and upper middle classes. La Sapinière embodies the quintessence of the French top-of-the-range holiday, a blend of thermalism and dolce vita. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1987, Villa La Sapinière remains a discreet sanctuary of French private heritage, whose rarity is due as much to the excellence of its artists as to the integrity of its original design, which has remained largely unchanged since its construction.
Architecture
Designed by Jean-Camille Formigé in the spirit of the Florentine Quattrocento, Villa La Sapinière's architecture is skilfully balanced, where the rigour of the volumes is enhanced by refined ornamentation. The façade, composed of a regular rhythm of bays and loggias characteristic of the Italian Renaissance, is built around a warm-tinted Estaillade stone that contrasts magnificently with the green of the surrounding conifers. The proportions of the openings, the use of semicircular arches and the care taken with the cornice modelling are directly reminiscent of the urban palaces of Florence and Siena. The interior reveals a decorative programme of exceptional coherence and richness. The layout of the rooms, typical of the bourgeois villa of the late 19th century, is organised around generous reception rooms, of which the billiard room is the jewel: it features wood panelling by Bracquemond, furniture by Charpentier and forms a setting for Rodin's sculptures adorning the door tops. The murals by Jules Chéret bring the surfaces to life in luminous compositions in warm tones, providing a pictorial counterpoint to the minerality of the sculpted stonework. The door tops sculpted by Rodin in Estaillade stone are a rare architectural feature: inserted into the very structure of the house, these bas-reliefs representing the Four Seasons transcend their decorative function to take on a monumental dimension. The ensemble forms a synthesis between Formigé's late historicist architecture and the Symbolist artistic avant-garde, making La Sapinière a unique testimony to the transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the French decorative arts.
Related Figures
Joseph Vitta — mécène et collectionneur, commanditaire de la villa (1896)Jean-Camille Formigé — architecte, concepteur de la villa dans le style QuattrocentoAuguste Rodin — sculpteur des dessus de porte représentant les Quatre SaisonsJules Chéret — peintre et affichiste, auteur des peintures murales intérieuresFélix Bracquemond — graveur et décorateur, concepteur des boiseriesAlexandre Charpentier — sculpteur et designer, auteur du mobilier de la salle de billard
Tags
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Villa La Sapinière located?
Villa La Sapinière is located in Evian-les-Bains, Département 74 department, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, France.
When was Villa La Sapinière built?
Villa La Sapinière dates back to a period built in the Middle Ages (11th-15th century).
Is Villa La Sapinière open to visitors?
Villa La Sapinière is currently closed to visitors.