Fondation Custodia
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 Fondation Custodia - 121 rue de Lille | |
 | |
| Established | 1947 |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 48°51′41″N 2°19′11″E / 48.86139°N 2.31972°E |
| Type | Art museum |
| Collections | 7,000 Old Master drawings, 15,000 prints, and 450 paintings. |
| Founder | Frits Lugt |
| Director | Stijn Alsteens |
| Website | fondationcustodia |
The Fondation Custodia is an art collection in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, focusing on European Old Master works, including works by Dutch, Flemish, Italian and French artists. It was founded in 1947 by the collector and art historian Frits Lugt and his wife Jacoba Lugt-Klever to house their collection of drawings, prints and paintings. Located at 121 rue de Lille, it occupies the Hôtel Turgot, an 18th-century mansion.[1]
Frits Lugt, born in Amsterdam in 1884 and died in Paris in 1970, was a famous Dutch art historian.[2] He catalogued the collections of Dutch drawings in Parisian public institutions (Musée du Louvre, Bibliothèque nationale de France and Ecole nationale des beaux-arts). He is most famous for his survey of collector’s marks on drawings and prints, which is still a reference work for specialists today and continues to be enriched in the form of a growing online database.[3]
Throughout his life, Frits Lugt was a keen art lover and collector. He built up a unique collection of drawings, prints, old books, paintings, artists' letters and Indian miniatures. Inspired by the example of the private American foundations he had visited while living in the United States during the Second World War, he decided in 1947 to create the Fondation Custodia (whose name means "safekeeping" in Latin) and to transfer his collection and his assets there.[4] The foundation was set up in the Hôtel Turgot in Paris, and in 1957 Frits Lugt also created the Institut néerlandais, housed in the neighbouring Hôtel Lévis-Mirepoix. This Dutch cultural centre was founded in collaboration with the Dutch government. In 2013, the latter withdrew its subsidy and the Institut néerlandais closed its doors for good.
The Fondation Custodia continues to acquire works to enrich the Lugt Collection and regularly organises exhibitions and guided tours of the Hôtel Turgot. It also lends works to exhibitions in France and abroad and is open to specialists and art lovers by appointment. It has a library whose collection, specialised in the field of Western fine arts from 1450 to 1900, is particularly extensive for graphic arts and exhaustive for the art of the Northern Schools of the Golden Age.[5]
