Musée Jacquemart-André

The Musée Jacquemart-André began as a private mansion built by the architect Henri Parent specifically to house the massive, growing art collection of Édouard André. André was the heir to a banking fortune, and he spent seven years overseeing the construction of this home on Boulevard Haussmann to showcase his acquisitions. When he met the successful portrait painter Nélie Jacquemart and married her in 1881, the couple turned the mansion into a laboratory for their shared obsession. They rearranged their living spaces—and often sacrificed their own domestic comfort—to fit more sculptures, tapestries, and paintings into the rooms.