User:Franck93110/Villa of the Roses of Asnières-sur-Seine

The Villa des Roses is located in the commune of Asnières-sur-Seine, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of the Île-de-France region.

The Villa des Roses is inextricably linked with the town of Asnières, as the Rancy and Bidel families are closely associated with the town's history. Not only did they establish their mansion here, but they also had a chapiteau close to the Seine, on rue de Châteaudun, where they wintered their animals,

During the First World War, when the show business was slowing down, the big top was used as a dog training center for the army.

Some of the menagerie's animals were buried in the dog cemetery.

As early as 1883, a street in Asnières was named after Bidel.

All the Rancy family are buried in the Rancy/Bidel family vault in the Asnières sur Seine cemetery. An original vault, to say the least, since it was surmounted by a life-size statue of a seated lion. Unfortunately, the statue was recently stolen. The family motto is inscribed: "Leo inter leones",

Location
This property adjoined that of the famous trunk-maker Louis Vuitton, which partly disappeared in the 1980s with the creation of the LVMH group.

It is located on a road created in 1860 to the north of the former property of Princess Palatine and Baron de Prony. On February 7, 1890, it was renamed "rue de la Comète",

As part of Asnières-sur-Seine's revised land-use plan (POS), the property is listed in the "heritage and landscape" appendix. As such, it is one of the buildings protected and enhanced in the local town planning scheme. (PLU),

The property is included in the "urban strolls" organized by the tourism department of the Asnières/ Seine town hall,

The time of the Rancy and Bidel families
This property, located at 13, rue de la Comète in Asnières-sur-Seine, reflects two famous 19th-century circus dynasties: the Rancy family and the Bidel family.

Théodore Rancy (1818-1892) was heir to a long line of acrobats. He became famous for his horse shows.

He triumphed on September 5, 1850 at the national circus on the Champs-Élysées. Tsar Nicholas I asked him to give performances for his own benefit at the Imperial Circus in St. Petersburg, the first of which took place on April 3, 1852. On January 9, 1869, he was invited by the Viceroy of Egypt, Ismaël Pacha, to organize the festivities for the inauguration of the Suez Canal. He inaugurated the Cairo Circus on October 16, 1869. He died on June 3, 1892. He left five children, including his son Alphonse Rancy, who married Jeanne Bidel, daughter of François Bidel, on November 28, 1889 at the Asnières town hall.

François Bidel (1839-1909): He was the most famous tamer of his time. Such was his fame that Bidel's name was given to the double-decker commuter carriages of the old French rail network. This nickname was given to them because their shape and that of the barred windows on the upper floor were reminiscent of the caravans in his menagerie. In 1882, Victor Hugo described him as "a lion among lions", and his menagerie included up to 150 residents: black panthers, white bears, Bengal tigers, wolves and, of course, lions, including the famous Sultan fawn.

In 1882, he bought a 1,300 m2 plot of land at 13, rue de la Comète, in Asnières-sur-Seine, to build a 310 m2, two-storey town house, at the end of the garden but visible from the street, flanked by two adjoining pavilions overlooking the street.

The house-warming party took place on July 6, 1886 at the Neuilly fair, also known as the fête à Neu-Neu.

During the François Bidel period, and then that of his no less famous son-in-law Alphonse Rancy and his daughter Jeanne, the Villa des Roses was home to many of the leading figures of the day, including Victor Hugo, Sarah Bernard (who also lived in Asnières), Rosa Bonheur and Alexandre Dumas fils, who often dined here and slept when the dinner party dragged on too long before returning to Paris.

François Bidel's daughter, Jeanne Bidel Rancy, lived in the house until her death in 1955. Her three heirs Marcelle, Albert and André Rancy sold the property in 1958.

André Rancy (1898/1964) married Sarah Caryth in April 1939. The latter was probably the last celebrity to live in this house with her husband. She was famous first as a nude dancer with a boa around her neck, then above all as a lion tamer.

In the '50s, André and Sarah worked for the circus owned by Albert Rancy, André's brother. The circus went bankrupt.

Sabine Rancy, born in 1929, created her circus in 1963. It was the last Rancy circus. Sabine was the great-granddaughter of Théodore Rancy. The circus collapsed in 1977, ending the Rancy saga in the circus world.

The Viguier era
In 1958, a medical couple, Christian and Jacqueline Viguier, acquired the property.

It was in very poor condition. It had been subdivided between the various Rancy owners. There was no bathroom. The garden was overgrown, and the central pond was used as a swimming pool for sea lions.

Christian (1914-1990) and Jacqueline (1922-2011) Viguier immediately undertook a complete restoration of the buildings and garden, which lasted four years (1958-1962).

Wrought iron, mascarons, staircases, statues: all exterior decorative elements were saved. The villa's façade was restored to its 1886 appearance.

The park was redesigned in 1962.

When Christian Viguier died in 1990, the usufruct of the property reverted to his widow Jacqueline Viguier.

When she passed away in April 2011, no restoration work had been undertaken since 1960.

His children inherited the property. They decided to restore all the buildings.

A dossier was submitted to the Fondation du Patrimoine, with the support of the cultural affairs department of the Asnières town council. However, the foundation refused any financial aid, on the grounds that on the day of the house-warming party in 1886, Asnières/seine could no longer be considered a rural area. The arrival of the railroads had already caused the population to explode.

We had to choose particularly high-performance companies accustomed to working on exceptional buildings.

CP Multi Système was immediately selected. They had already been involved after the terrible storm of 1999, which had damaged part of the zinc roof. The quality of their work was therefore well established. The company had previously been chosen to restore the roof of the Le Printemps store in Reims, a listed historic monument.

CP Multi Systèmes introduced the J.M. company, with whom they had worked in the past. It was therefore chosen for all painting and stone restoration work.

DécorationDecoration
The Villa des Roses was built in the particular artistic context of the late 19th century. A certain academicism still prevailed in the urban environment. But a certain architectural extravagance also appeared in the construction of bourgeois residences featuring statues of Greek heroes or goddesses, grottoes or trickling waterfalls, as in the garden of the now-defunct Hôtel Vuitton, adjoining the Villa des Roses. Some "official", or at least established, architects, such as Auguste Mayet, who was mayor of Asnières from 1920 to 1925, presented projects described as exotic, if not "delirious".

The Villa des Roses is the fruit of these different currents. It's a distinctive blend of architectural styles. The Haussmannian style can be seen in the villa's front door and the wrought iron on the balcony and windows, but it also draws inspiration from Greek mythology with the two statues bearing candelabras on either side of the stoop.

That's why the circus world is omnipresent in the decor. The main facade is adorned with motifs reminiscent of circus life, including lion heads.

This is also why the exterior decoration of the "Villa des roses" is flamboyant and out of the ordinary. The first floor is accessed via a vast marble staircase, illuminated by two floor lamps held above their heads by two bronze slaves, one Egyptian, the other Greek.

The interior decoration was much more sober, and the furniture chosen by Bidel was in the Louis XV style.

Mademoiselle Bidel, future Madame Rancy, spent her days playing the piano.

In the dining room, there were two wooden panels painted by Rosa Bonheur (no longer in the villa) depicting the lions Sultan and Saida.

One of the paintings depicting the fauve couple was auctioned in Paris, Salle Drouot, on June 18, 2010. Sale by PIASA. (Lot 17)

They reflect the deep friendship between Rosa Bonheur and François Bidel,,,,.

Rosa Bonheur also painted a watercolor of the Sultan lion for Bidel. This watercolor is no longer in the Villa des roses. It is now in the Minneapolis Institute of art (USA).

Press reports reveal that Bidel also owned two other works by Rosa Bonheur. A study of the Sultan lion's head and a pebble from the beach at Nice on which the artist had painted a lion's head.

Some original decorative elements remain: superb fireplaces and parquet floors dating back to the villa's creation, coffered ceiling in the dining room, magnificent paving in the entrance and first floor corridors, a few stained glass windows including a triptych depicting the assassination of Caesar by Brutus signed by Janin.

The Janins were famous master glassmakers who created the stained glass windows for the Vuitton estate.

Gardens
The cedar of Lebanon in front of the main building is listed in the departmental inventory of "remarkable trees" and is listed as a tree to be protected under article L 123-1 7 of the French Planning Code.

In 2023, the current lady of the house, assisted by landscape gardener Yann Léger of 77280 Baby, redesigned and recomposed the garden in the spirit of its origins, as described by François Bidel in his 1888 memoirs.