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Near Paris, in the Oise department, the Donjon de Vez has dominated the Au- tumn Valley since the 14th century. Built in 1390 by Jean de Vez, chamberlain of Louis d’Orléans, the estate went through years of splendor and neglect until Maître Francis Briest, one of the main auctioneers of the Artcurial auction house, falls in love with this architectural heritage to exhibit his collection of contemporary art. Master Francis Briest made his stately home comfortable and endeavored to open it to the public as soon as it was acquired.
He has thus organized numerous exhibitions of works by internationally renowned artists and others in the making whose original talent is only affirming itself. For the interior decoration, he called on Jacques Garcia for the library, Sol Lewitt for the frescoes in the dining room and Daniel Buren for the superb colored stained glass windows in the chapel, the attic of which was created by Gustave Eiffel and whose courtyard is adorned with an enormous pot of gold by Jean-Pierre Raynaud which seems to float on a mirror of water like a sun defying all weather.
Its «remarkable garden» as conferred by its label has been restructured into four-lobed plants by Pascal Cribier, landscaper of the Jardin des Tuileries, to offer a marvelous green setting to all the sculptures that thus dialogue with nature defying the centuries between the Middle Ages and modernity.
Donjon de VEZ
Jean Pierre Raynaud, gold pot on a background of stained glass windows by Daniel BUREN