Anastasios G. Leventis acquired in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s what is today the Foundation’s Collection of European Art. Named the ‘Paris Collection’ after the Parisian apartment where it was housed for well over half a century, the Collection brings together works from a broad spectrum of the history of art and underlines the collector’s eclectic outlook: his appreciation of a wide range of artistic schools and styles from the 17th century to the 20th.
Gallery A is dedicated to the Old Masters and academic art. Six thematic sections display religious imagery, from El Greco and his studio to Murillo and the Counter-Reformation; 17th-century still lifes of the Dutch, French and Spanish schools; the art of the Rococo, exemplified through works by Boucher, Oudry and Fragonard and the 18th-century French landscape school, portrayed in paintings, drawings and watercolours. The ‘hierarchy of genres’ is illustrated through works of the 17th and 18th centuries, while the gallery culminates with the Venetian view painters, including masterworks by Canaletto and Guardi. Evoking the unique ambience of the collector’s home, the presentation includes a wood-panelled room – transported from the apartment and re-erected here – as well as a wealth of period furniture and objets d’art, which form an integral part of the Collection.
Gallery B of the Paris Collection illustrates the journey from Impressionism to the early days of Modernism. Works by the precursors of the Impressionist movement, Corot and Boudin, are juxtaposed with paintings by the great Impressionist masters: Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Pissarro. Vivid canvases exemplify the turn from Post-Impressionism to Fauvism and beyond, represented by the bold brushwork of Signac, Bonnard, Dufy, Vlaminck, Utrillo, van Dongen and Chagall.
