Lack of means this project will not come

When it went today to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, before even to be able to admire the "round night" of Rembrandt or "The dairy" of Vermeer, in the best-of proposed by the famous Museum in work, one of the first presented works is a very large piece of furniture which belonged to the wife of a rich merchant, Petronella Oortman. It is in fact a huge Doll House, which reproduces in miniature and across the different floors of a bourgeois Dutch Interior to the 17th century with an infinite number of details. The music salon, library... The world in miniature... This is a unique approach to reality shared by another personality from the world of museums, but this time in France: Dina Vierny.

That was the last model of the sculptor Maillol and which opened a foundation bearing the name of the artist in 1995 and an art gallery after war at Saint-Germain-des-Prés died in January 2009. A year later, his sons sold in Chartres what remains of its most intimate collections and the most atypical: a huge miniature world. At the same time, a "story of my life" just released by Gallimard (1) consisting of a long interview with it by Alain Jaubert. She tells, among others, its very singular taste of collections. In some respects, it is not unlike the choice quite disparate and frenetic - Oceanian art to the mussels to host,-of the surrealist André Breton, she was also known. When Alain Jaubert him raises the question of its collections of choice, she answers: "ask me instead that I have not collected! I already told you that I had started very young by objects that I bought in the antique dealers of the Saint-Germain neighbourhood with my lunch money. I bought art Etruscan, Cappadocia, Mesopotamia and the African weight, things which at the time were still cheap also. I continued to look my life. I have of porcelain, Amazon objects, old furniture, a sham, notebooks of Viennese ball... "However, all these old pieces are not sentimental:"home, step of nostalgia." It is the dream and it is always optimistic.

"Awake dreamer."

The general trend in the collection, as in the culture in General, is to distinguish the noble areas of the painting and sculpture and those relating to daily life objects more anecdotal. Dina Vierny was not living the collection as well. "My love and my understanding of the objects come from the Surrealists." They have opened my eyes to many things. It is an apology for the dream and I'm an awake dreamer. I am interested and attracted by the unusual object. ... For me, the objects are the characters, I regard them as living beings.

From the 1960s, the inveterate collector will focus on the area of collection dolls. It had for objective to devote part of its foundation to a Museum of dolls. Lack of means, this project will not come. And worse, in 1996, she is forced to sell much of objects constituting the and his collection of manuscripts, to honour its debts to the banks. It disperse London 1,000 dolls in 654 lots which will pay out 22 million francs. His son, Olivier Lorquin, testified: "In his Parisian apartment, on the top floor of the building of the Foundation, it was all his small world situation." She did develop the sous-pentes by carpenters and had reconstructed houses. Each House was inhabited by a "family". She spoke to dolls. She claimed even hear them walking at night. Me it me scared a little bit. I had the impression that all these characters would animate in a horror film. "It explains his passion in his book testimony:" what interested me was to demonstrate that the doll is a work of art. ". It took me years to understand. The toy has always accompanied the human being. It is a social witness. It can be a real sculpture. ... I gathered the Rembrandt and Renoir from the dolls. And I had, death in the soul, break up this collection. Now, I buy more dolls, but I kept very small subjects with which I had started. I still have a city of dolls. "Precisely it is that is dispersed to the study of Chartres on March 27. 462 lots estimated at 200,000 euros.

Auctioneer Jean-Pierre Lelièvre attended for many years this women outstanding as buyer. "It was an approach, in some respects, literary." She restored interiors in detail to tell stories. "Everything which is assigned the XIXeou from the beginning of the 20th century date. It toys as well as masterpieces of companionship or furniture model samples for trade promotion. All inventory is quite surprising. 200 euros to estimate for a Dutch chandelier copper of 15 cm in height. 50 euros for a small Pack of soldier of the war 14 including sausage and socks of alternatives (4 cm tall) and 150 euros for a birdcage in bronze by 7 cm. She also had a House of English type of fully furnished 1850s consisting of six rooms on three floors (estimate: 6,000 euros). At the same time was designed in Germany another House, painted wood, with his characters, which resembles a kind of Tower of Babel (2,500 euros). Dina Vierny had reconstituted a set of scenes of the Belle Epoque, that it was in Maxims: great reception room, kitchen, etc. hosted by a very large number of characters in costume (8,000 euros). And then an infinite number of shoes, hats, gloves for all these protagonists of a frozen world.

An inventory that the friend of Dina Vierny, Jacques Prévert, would certainly not reneged.