Alessandra Signorelli|
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Even the most popular cities have corners of interest that see few visitors, and museums and other places of historical relevance in which you may find yourself perusing the displays alone, which, these days, is true luxury. Here are 5 crowd-free museums to visit this year.
1. Foundation Frison Horta, Brussels, Belgium
Mention you’re going to a Victor Horta house and even the Belgians will assume you mean the Horta Museum. Horta (1861-1947), the country’s most famous architect, and master of the sinuous art nouveau architecture well known today but revolutionary in the 19th century, left famous buildings across Brussels.
But the Frison house is privately owned, and the last Horta construction still in use as a residence. You must write to ask for a visit (contact@foundation-frison-horta.be) and electronically deposit a modest donation. You’ll be greeted by the maid at the appointed time, for a short tour conducted by the owner herself. Left unoccupied for decades, the house, along with its original art nouveau furniture, was preserved by neglect, and its ongoing restoration is a labour of love, funded by donations.
As Horta intended, this is a gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, from organic banisters and wall decorations to vegetal door handles and stained glass. It’s not a museum but a living, breathing residence, and no one minds if you gently touch.
2. Fondazione Luigi Rovati, Milan, Italy
Milan is hardly short of international renown, with its cathedral, fashion shopping, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, and important art museums. This is perhaps why the Rovati, although opened in 2022, remains little visited.
The freshly renovated 19th century palace is well preserved and its flamboyant main floor – all floor-to-ceiling mirrors and fuchsia walls – is worth visiting in its own right. But vast sums were spent excavating a basement, which resembles a James Bond villain’s lair but was inspired by an Etruscan necropolis, and offers a compact and approachable collection of Etruscan art, some of which is presented next to a Picasso or a Warhol.
The Etruscans, at their height around 500BC, were the ultimate ceramicists, and the museum’s perfectly lit collection tracks the ever-increasing sophistication of their wares, domestic, artistic and devotional.
3. Mucha Museum, Prague, Czech Republic
Prague may be in danger of joining Venice and Barcelona in being too crowded year-round but, as in those cities, visitors swarm mostly to the same attractions, while the rest of the city quietly basks in its history.
There’s been a Mucha museum in Prague since the 1990s, but in February, the Mucha Foundation, run by a descendant of the artist – Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) – and guardians of his heritage, holders of the largest collection of his work, opened an official version in the newly renovated 18th century Savarin Palace.
Mucha worked mostly in Paris, his posters for the performances of French stage superstar Sarah Bernhardt having taken advertising into the realm of art. But he’s a Czech cultural hero, and his images for cigarette papers and champagne, also featuring diaphanously draped women with luxuriant hair, will be instantly recognisable.
Mucha was a serious promoter of Slavic culture, and some works displayed here deal with important historical events, giving Mucha more gravitas than is usually recognised outside his home country.
4. The Giorgio de Chirico House Museum, Rome, Italy
Rome’s historical significance hardly needs any elaborating, but this city-centre apartment probably will, and if the name de Chirico (1888-1978) isn’t familiar, his works, which line the walls of his sitting, living and dining rooms, probably will be.
There are a limited number of one-hour, very small group tours (in English or Italian), which must be booked on the website in advance and include time to look at the painter’s faintly disturbing art, one period of which inspired the surrealists. The Disquieting Muses, one of his best-known works and of which he made many versions over the years, is among those on display.
The apartment did triple-duty as his workroom, living space and sales gallery. But his comfortable furnishings are much as they were, and there’s the feeling that the painter might suddenly appear from a bedroom, one with an unusual view of the Spanish Steps.
prenotazioni.fondazionedechirico.org
5. HR Giger Museum, Gruyères, Switzerland
A single-track, narrow-gauge train line leads to this ancient hilltop backwater, with its main street of solid merchants’ houses rising to an 11th century fortress. Gruyères looks as if it might have fallen out of a Renaissance painting, but its Château Saint-Germain, next to the castle, is filled with paintings, furniture and statuary of a different kind.
Here, the late H.R. Giger installed a celebration of his own work that includes Necronom IV (1976), the image that caught the attention of director Ridley Scott, who commissioned a 3D version for his 1979 film Alien, which earned Giger and colleagues an Oscar for design.
While various versions of the Alien on display seem ready to dismember visitors, there’s a great deal more to Giger’s work that will keep you from running away screaming. And outside, the town’s restaurants and cafes offer the upliftingly rich dairy products for which the region is justly famous.
Sophie Rosemont
Amandine Lhoste
Calin Van Paris