Palais Galliera

The Palais Galliera stands as a monument to a profound falling out between a wealthy patron and the city she once intended to bless. Marie Brignole-Sale, the Duchess of Galliera, commissioned this grand Beaux-Arts building in the late nineteenth century to house her immense personal art collection, which featured masterpieces by Van Dyck and other European legends. However, the French government passed a law in eighteen eighty-four that targeted her family's royalist connections. Outraged by this political move, the Duchess withdrew her entire collection and donated it instead to museums in her native Genoa. She still paid for the building to be finished, but when it opened, it stood entirely empty of the treasures it was designed to hold.