Passions privées,
trésors publics

Donating a collection of artworks, or even a single piece, to a museum is to actively participate in a great human and cultural adventure; it is to enrich public heritage by ensuring its long-term preservation; it is to make a personal contribution to projects that will allow an institution to fulfill its primary mission: to gather artistic testimonies for the creation of a collection oriented towards the future.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne has celebrated the individuals whose generosity has marked the history of its collections, starting from its very beginnings. By transforming their private passions into public treasures, by donating, bequeathing, or providing long-term deposits of works they have acquired, and sometimes even offering financial support for the acquisition of prestigious objects, these modern patrons have brought, and continue to bring, decisive support to the essential mission of the Museum: to build for tomorrow.

The exhibition revealed the hidden side of this other history of the Museum’s collections, focusing on the portrait of the patrons and their motivations. Through a journey that allowed visitors to discover leading works, with a narrative filled with anecdotal facts but also shedding light on a vision of the history of art, visitors learned how discreet personalities or famous figures with family heritage, collectors driven by a passionate zeal, major patronage foundations, businesses committed to promoting their region, and even artists have, for some, enriched and diversified, and for others, profoundly transformed the face of the cantonal collections, thus affirming their trust in their Museum.