The La Garenne Lemot estate (; ) is a park located in the communes of Gétigné and Clisson in Loire-Atlantique, as well as Cugand in Vendée. It was created by the sculptor François-Frédéric Lemot at the beginning of the 19th century. The ensemble is intended as a tribute to the landscapes and architecture of Italy. The estate consists of a neo-Palladian villa overlooking the valley of the Sèvre Nantaise, as well as woods and gardens where fabriques and statues in the Antique style, along with the gardener's and gatekeeper's houses in an Italianate style, are erected.
The Departmental Council of Loire-Atlantique purchased the estate from the Lemot family in 1968. It was listed as a historic monument the following year and has been classified in stages since 1988. Currently, it is a place for strolls and a cultural center where contemporary art exhibitions and performances are regularly organized.
Location The La Garenne Lemot estate is located in the southeast of the Loire-Atlantique department, on the border with Vendée, in the valley of the Sèvre Nantaise. At the southeastern edge of the commune of Clisson, it extends mainly over the territory of the commune of Gétigné. The park occupies an entire hillside within a loop formed by the river, from the heights at thirty-five meters above sea level along the former Route nationale 149 between Nantes and Poitiers, down to the riverbanks, twenty meters lower. The total area of the estate is 13 hectares. It is open to the public every day, with free access.
However, the park has the particularity of including elements located outside the estate, on the other side of the river, placed there to create perspectives with the buildings and garden features. These fabriques are located in the territories of the communes of Clisson and Cugand.
History
Origin of the site Originally, the land known as the "Bois de la Garenne" was a hunting reserve belonging to the lords of Clisson. The site is situated on granitic terrain, then covered with heaths and about four hundred oaks.
During the French Revolution, during the Vendée Wars, the Clisson valley was devastated. In response to the levée en masse of three hundred thousand men by the Convention in 1793, the Clisson district rose in insurrection. After battles between the Vendéens and Republicans, the "Mayençais" of Jean-Baptiste Kléber set fire to the Clisson castle and many houses. In January 1794, the infernal columns finished destroying Clisson, the church, and many houses in the village of Gétigné. The town's population used the oaks from the garenne around 1796 to build shelters while awaiting the reconstruction of their homes. It was in this context of rebuilding the valley that the arrival of François-Frédéric Lemot changed the fate of the estate.
Art museum
In 1805, François-Frédéric Lemot, a sculptor from Lyon, was drawn to Clisson by François Cacault (1743–1805), a diplomat and former deputy of Loire-Inférieure. The latter, along with his brother Pierre Cacault (1744–1810), an artist painter, had founded a museum there with numerous art collections amassed during their stays in Italy.
Both men wished to make it a place of welcome for artists. While stationed in Rome, François Cacault had the opportunity to associate with artists residing at the French Academy in Rome, including François-Frédéric Lemot, Prix de Rome winner in sculpture in 1790. By settling in Clisson, the artists around Cacault sought to rediscover the landscape paintings of the Roman countryside in the hills overlooking the Sèvre.
According to François-Frédéric Lemot, Nicolas Poussin was inspired by the Sèvre valley to paint the landscapes of his painting Diogène jetant son écuelle, currently housed at the Louvre Museum. This legend is false but remains an invitation for artists to explore the region. Upon his arrival in 1805 with other artists, the sculptor was struck by the resemblance to Italy:
Transformation of the site by Lemot François-Frédéric Lemot acquired the Garenne property on and immediately began preparatory drawings for his estate project. He developed it continuously until his death in 1827. The inspirations remained Italian; François-Frédéric Lemot aimed to recreate an idealized historical landscape painting evoking, as in the works of Poussin, the countryside of Tuscany, Latium, and Umbria. The sculptor wanted to give the site the air of Tivoli, a spectacular city and grand landscape, a favorite study subject for artists staying in Italy. He enlisted the Nantes architect Mathurin Crucy, also a Prix de Rome winner in 1774, to draft his designs. The entire project was overseen on-site by the Clisson estate manager, Joseph Gautret (1771–1855), who resided in the gardener's house. The correspondence between the two men provides insight into the stages of the estate's development. The property covered a total area of twenty-five hectares, of which the park was only the center: Baron Lemot was a true landowner, owning several meierhofs. His properties were elevated to the rank of Majorat the day before his death.
The park was developed from 1806; François-Frédéric Lemot planted 280 trees, followed by a thousand poplars the next year along the Sèvre and on the river's islands. Gautret and his workers devoted 360 days to this task and to clearing brush and brambles. The manager even acquired ferrets to eliminate the rabbits in the garenne. At the same time, three avenues were laid out, converging toward the terrace and the future site of the villa. The small paths were bordered with lilacs and hazels. François-Frédéric Lemot demanded dense vegetation over most of the park to create surprise effects. A vegetable garden, now gone, was laid out and enclosed between 1807 and 1808: around a basin, a three-hectare nursery was planted to allow various species to mature before planting in the park. Along the Sèvre's banks, the terrain was leveled from September 1806, and a meadow was established. Between 1807 and 1809, two hundred poplars were planted along the banks and on the small islands, along with a hundred willows. Some park developments strictly followed the chapter "les Jardins" from Pierre Henri de Valenciennes's treatise: Éléments de perspective pratique, a l'usage des artistes, suivis de réflexions et conseils à un élève sur la peinture, et particulièrement sur le genre du paysage, Paris, Victor Desenne, J.-B.-M. Duprat, Jules-Louis-Melchior Porthmann, 1799. The park is thus a recomposition of a historical landscape painting on the scale of nature, making it a unique project.
Gautret employed up to thirteen people for park maintenance. Seeds were transported from Nantes or Paris. Local species were favored for tree selection, accompanied by shrubs to create thickets. Numerous pines were also planted, extending to the hills on the other side of the Sèvre, between the obelisk and the Clisson castle, from 1809. François-Frédéric Lemot declared: "I want to multiply this tree greatly in the park and the region, which will give it entirely the appearance of Italy"(). Roses were installed from 1814. From the same year, vines were also planted: first, chasselas vines on brick pillars along the main entrance path, forming a trellis. Then, four thousand vine plants were installed on the sunny hillside in 1827. Exotic tree species were introduced at the end of the 19th century.
The buildings were constructed in Italian-inspired styles. The gardener's house was built from 1811 to 1815, likely based on plans by Mathurin Crucy or . Crucy drafted plans for a villa, with construction starting in 1816. The work and plans were taken over by the Parisian architect Pierre-Louis van Cleemputte (1758–1834) in 1824, but François-Frédéric Lemot never saw its completion. The garden fabriques were built by Mathurin Crucy and François-Frédéric Lemot between 1818 and 1823. Upon his death, François-Frédéric Lemot was buried in the Temple of Friendship, a former funeral chapel arranged in the Clisson cemetery, opposite the castle, across the Sèvre.
Evolution of the site after the death of François-Frédéric Lemot The son of François-Frédéric Lemot, Barthélémy (1810–1883), decided to settle in Clisson in 1841 and served as mayor of the town several times until 1881. He completed the development of the villa but also had the belvedere, the monumental staircase, the Gallery of Illustrious Men, the stone colonnade enclosing the courtyard, and the icehouse constructed. As the town's first magistrate, he promoted the Italianate style in the construction of several public buildings.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the estate served as a reception center called "Le Joyeux Nid" for children in difficulty under the care of child welfare services. It remained in the possession of the sculptor's descendants until 1968, when the estate was sold to the Departmental Council of Loire-Atlantique. The estate then began to be subject to protection measures as a historic monument. In 1969, the villa and the Temple of Vesta were listed, followed by the Henri IV column and the surrounding park in 1986. By decree of , the entire park and its fabriques, the exterior of the villa, and the gardener's house were classified as historic monuments, along with the exterior of the Temple of Friendship and the obelisk on the left bank. In 2000, the gatekeeper's house, the last unprotected building, was classified.
The estate hosted the Frac des Pays de la Loire from 1988 until 1994, when it relocated to Nantes. In 1990, a documentary exhibition on the estate's history and Italianate architecture was permanently installed in the gardener's house. In the same building, the Center for Studies on Heritage and Italianity in Architecture (CÉPIA) organized conferences, summer universities on-site, and produced publications in the field of architecture and heritage.
Architecture François-Frédéric Lemot, being a sculptor and not an architect, enlisted neoclassical architects for the construction of the buildings within the estate. However, his drawings indicate that it was François-Frédéric Lemot who defined the main lines of the architectural project for all these buildings.
Villa Lemot