The art of storing and unveiling

‘Put beauty first and what you get will be used forever,’ said Roger Scruton in his BBC documentary Why Beauty Matters. The philosopher’s neat elision of beauty and utility is perfectly embodied by Étienne Maurice Falconet’s nymph, who is to be the star of a forthcoming lecture by Waddesdon Manor curator Juliet Carey. This small marble figure would be far less remarkable were it not for the elegance of the 19th-century wooden box in which she is housed. Exquisite, flesh-like pillows of chamois fill the space around the nymph’s form: the box and the sculpture seem at one, as though locked in a dance.

The nymph has been stored this way since the 19th century when Edmond de Rothschild commissioned a set of boxes for his collection from Chenue. The French fine-art storage specialist has been perfecting its craft ever since it transported valuable items on behalf of the noblesse in Marie Antoinette’s Paris. Carey notes that over the years the nymph has left indents and impressions in the box’s lining so that the casing is now perfectly attuned to the sculpture’s form. The Rothschild box even features a built-in stage which will display the nymph in all her glory once opened. The box has carried her through wars, revolutions and restitutions. But it’s clear from its design that it is offering the sculpture far more than protection from the elements.

‘The way in which an object is stored can magnify its beauty,’ says current director of Chenue Motet de La Panouse. He heralds the Statue of Liberty as a crowning example. In a masterful act of Franco-American diplomacy, the iconic monument was transported by Chenue to North America in a crate that was painted in the red, white and blue of the American and French flags. The unveiling of art can add to its aesthetic power, he says,‘much like a wrapped Dior handbag’.