Léonce Bénédite

The art historian Léonce Bénédite was the son of the first marriage of the wife of the curator of the Louvre. This gave him privileged access to contemporary artists, and he developed a network of close relationships. He was trained in law and art history. From 1882-1886 he was deputy curator at the Palace of Versailles and then became the first deputy director at the Musée du Luxembourg, devoted mainly to French painting.

Bénédite headed the Musée du Luxembourg from 1892, initially as interim director, and was confirmed in this post in 1895. Despite insufficient funds, the museum experienced an expansion of its collections under his management, notably through the partial acceptance of the legacy of painter and patron Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), which consisted of Impressionist works and for which an annex was built.

For more than 25 years, Bénédite proposed projects to rebuild the original museum in the Palais Luxembourg, enlarge the Orangerie, and relocate the collections, but never got beyond the stage of an unimplemented decree. He also did not hesitate to approach American patrons, but this was categorically rejected by the French politicians. He was also instrumental in getting Orientalist art recognized as an art movement in its own right.

Known for his close association with Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Bénédite became the first curator of the Rodin Museum in parallel with his position at the Musée du Luxembourg. Legal disputes related to a forgery and rivalry with Rodin’s assistant damaged the curator’s reputation. He organized the transfer of some 400 works from the personal collection of the Japanese industrialist Matsukata Kōjirō (1865-1950) to the Musée Rodin. This collection was returned to Japan by the French government in 1959 to serve as the foundation for the collections of the new National Museum of Western Art.

In 1892, Bénédite and others launched a quarterly publication, L’Album des peintres-lithographes. In addition to his work as an art historian, as a member of the commission for acquisitions for the national museums, or as president of the Société des peintres orientalistes français and the Société des peintres-lithographes, he also organized a number of pioneering exhibitions.

Léonce Bénédite wrote countless articles and books on art and museography. His archives are currently housed in the library of the Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris. He was the elder brother of the Egyptologist Georges Bénédite (1857-1926), who was considered one of the victims of the “curse of the pharaoh” Tutankhamun.