Private passions, public treasures

13.7. – 11.9.2011

Making a donation to a museum of a set of artworks, or even a single work, is to participate actively in a great human and cultural adventure. It signifies enriching the public heritage whilst also ensuring the preservation of the artworks in the long term. It means making a personal contribution to projects that permit an institution to carry out its principal vocation: the collection of works of art for the benefit of future generations.
The Musée de Beaux-Arts de Lausanne acknowledges those private individuals whose generosity has affected the history of the museum's collections since its origins. By turning their private passions into public treasures and passing works that they have acquired to the community in the form of gifts, bequests or long-term deposits, and sometimes also providing financial help for the acquisition of prestigious objects, these patrons of art have provided – and still provide today – crucial support for the accomplishment of the museum's mission: that of building for tomorrow.
The exhibition presents the hidden face of this other history of the museum's collections by portraying the patrons and investigating their motivations. This display of key works, supplemented by descriptive texts featuring anecdotal histories and a vision of the history of art, will enable visitors to learn how discreet individuals and famous figures in possession of a family inheritance, avid collectors, beneficent foundations of national stature, companies wishing to promote their region, and artists too, have enriched, broadened and profoundly changed the face of the canton's collections, and confirmed their confidence in the integrity and competence of their museum.