On April 15, 2019, the world held its breath as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris teetered on the edge of collapse following a severe fire—the precise origins of which are still under investigation. Five years later, the damage has been cleared, the stone inside the cathedral shines anew, and the structure’s mighty spire has been rebuilt and secured in place. With an end in sight to the most significant restoration works, the city’s majestic icon is on track for its grand reopening on December 8, just as President Macron vowed.
In the meantime, there’s a unique opportunity to glean a fresh perspective on the 860-year-old monument. A new exhibition, that previewed on the eve of the April 24 grand opening, showcases masterpieces from the cathedral’s interior that were saved in the days after the fire and restored by specialized experts over the last two years. Seeing these marvels up close meant venturing south of Ile de la Cité, the city’s central island, to the 13th arrondissement where the Mobilier National, one of France’s lesser-known public institutions, preserves and repairs the country’s most valuable historic furnishings and decorative arts.
In the Galerie des Gobelins building, once part of the Gobelins tapestry factory, Restoring the Grands Decors of Notre Dame comes to life. The monumental exhibit is organized by the Mobilier National and the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles d’Île-de-France (a part of the Ministry of Culture) with the support of the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France. During the preview, its curators walked me through a selection of pieces that trace both the beloved cathedral’s decorative history and its future. The short version: It’s a chance to see restored pieces dating back to the 17th century on display outside the cathedral for the first time, juxtaposed with contemporary furnishing.
Among the display of religious paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries that loom large at the start of the exhibit, the most notable are the 13 large-format pieces from a collection of 76 works called Mays. As the curators explained, these paintings were produced by the country’s best artists between 1630 and 1707 and donated to the cathedral by the goldsmiths guild of Paris every year on May 1, in honor of the Virgin Mary. During the Revolution, about 20 of the Mays were dispersed when all ecclesiastical property was seized. Five paintings disappeared, while the rest were transported to the Musée des Petits-Augustins and the Louvre. After the Concordat of 1801, Catholic worship at Notre Dame was restored, and these 13 pieces were returned to the cathedral.
Emmanuel Pénicaut, director of Mobilier National collections, wasn’t surprised when I said I hadn’t seen any of them in nearly twenty years of living in Paris. “These paintings, each four meters high, were hung in the nave’s very poorly lit side chapels, hardly visible to the average visitor,” he explained. “Here, people can see them up close and displayed in the order they were painted.”
