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Origin and history

The Pavillon de Vendôme, also known as Pavillon de La Molle, is a former mansion built in Aix-en-Provence from 1665 on the orders of Louis de Mercœur, Duke of Vendôme and Governor of Provence. A grandson of Henry IV, in 1664 he acquired a land outside the ramparts to build a residence inspired by his love for Lucrece de Forbin-Solliès, known as "the Belle du Canet". The building, designed by architect Antoine Matisse, combines classical elegance and functionality, with an open ground floor for carriageways and a Mansart roof. The legend tells us that the night visits of the masked Belle du Canet would have hastened the Duke's death in 1669, giving birth to the Provencal saying "Las machouettos an tua lou duc" ("The owls killed the Duke").

After the Duke's death, the pavilion was sold in 1669 to the Advocate General Gautier de la Molle, who finished his interior decoration, adding a floor and covering it with Roman tiles. In the 18th century, he passed into the hands of the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo, who installed his workshop there, then of Barthélemy-Louis Reboul, secretary of the Academy of Aix. During the Revolution, the pavilion, which had become demigrated, was sold before being bought in 1824 by the bishop of Angoulême for a boarding school for young girls. The nuns of the Sacred Heart occupied throughout the 19th century.

In 1906, the Swiss art lover Henri Dobler acquired the pavilion, began his restoration and partially restored his original furniture. He classified the garden and facade as historical monuments in 1914. When he died in 1941, he left the building and its collections to the city of Aix-en-Provence, on condition of making it a museum. Since the 1990s, the Pavillon de Vendôme-Dobler has been hosting exhibitions of contemporary art and photographs, while preserving its 18th century interior decorations (gypseries, honorary staircase, painted ceilings) and its collections of portraits, faiences of Moustiers and Provencal furniture.

The architecture of the pavilion illustrates a unique mix of styles: a doric ground floor, a first ionic floor and a second composite, all carved in the yellowish stone of Bibémus. The baroque atlantes of Jean-Claude Rambot, framing the entrance, and the French-style garden reconstructed after 17th-century engravings, make it a masterpiece of the Aixese heritage. The site also contains ancient remains, such as a mosaic and fragments of Roman columns, bearing witness to an ancient occupation.

Ranked a historic monument in 1914 for its facade and garden, then in 1953 for its adjacent roofs and pavilions, the Pavillon de Vendôme now embodies a dialogue between history and modernity. His current museum orientation, combining ancient and contemporary art, is part of the vision of Henri Dobler, who dreamed of a "Medicis school in Provence". Close to the school of art in Aix, there is still a crossroads between heritage and creation, rooted in the tumultuous history of the Provence of the Great Century.

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