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Origin and history

Hotel Salomon de Rothschild is a private hotel located at 11 rue Berryer, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was built from 1873 on the site of the former Folie Beaujon, a property acquired by Baroness Adèle de Rothschild, widow of Solomon James de Rothschild. The architect Léon Ohnet, then his pupil Justin Ponsard after his death in 1874, directed the works, completed in 1878. This project was part of a desire for modernity, with a neoclassical architecture inspired by the eighteenth century, designed to showcase the rich collections of family art.

Baroness Adèle gradually expanded the estate by acquiring adjacent plots, including the house of Balzac, shaved in 1890 to extend the garden, and the old chapel Saint-Nicolas, transformed into a rotunda after its demolition. When she died, she bequeathed the hotel and its collections to the state, with the wish that it become a "house of art" dedicated to exhibitions and artists. The building will later house cultural institutions such as the Jacques Doucet Library or the art recovery service after the Second World War.

The hotel is marked by a tragic event: the assassination of President Paul Doumer in 1932 during a literary salon. Ranked a historic monument in 2005, it now houses the Artists Foundation. Its 4,000 m2 garden, maintained by the city of Paris, remains accessible to the public. The interior architecture, decorated with Italian decorations and mirrors amplifying the spaces, reflects the fascination of Rothschild residences, while the cabinet of curiosities preserves medieval, eastern and European art objects.

The remains of Folie Beaujon, like an 18th-century ceiling or the gates of the Balzac house, recall the complex history of the site. The rotunda, built at the site of the old chapel, and the collections transferred to the Louvre or the Musée d'Ecouen bear witness to the successive transformations of the place. The hotel thus embodies both the patronage of Rothschild and the cultural changes of Paris between the 19th and 20th centuries.

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