Marc Chagall
Madeleine Castaing's shop and salon on the rue du Cherche-Midi belonged to the interwar collecting world Chagall moved in. Her painter was Chaim Soutine, who had been his neighbour at La Ruche.
Madeleine Castaing's salon, 15 rue du Cherche-Midi
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The shop and salon of Madeleine Castaing, the decorator and collector who kept Chaïm Soutine alive on a stipend and whose rooms Marc Chagall passed through in the interwar years.
- 15 rue du Cherche-Midi, 75006 Paris
- Madeleine Castaing's decorating shop and salon
The place, briefly
Madeleine Castaing was a decorator whose interiors — leopard-print carpet, blue-green walls, Napoleon III furniture used without irony — became one of the most imitated looks of the twentieth century. She was also a serious collector and patron, and her shop on the rue du Cherche-Midi functioned as a salon.
Her central relationship was with Chaïm Soutine. She and her husband Marcellin supported him for years, took him into their house in the country, and assembled the largest private group of his paintings. Soutine had been Marc Chagall's neighbour a decade earlier at La Ruche, and the two men's circles kept overlapping.
Chagall belonged to that world in the interwar years — the collectors, the dealers, the decorators with money and taste who were buying the work of the École de Paris while the official institutions were still ignoring it.
The shop has gone. The rue du Cherche-Midi is still a street of antique dealers, which is a kind of continuity.
Key facts
- Madeleine Castaing, decorator, collector and patron
- Leopard carpet, blue-green walls, Napoleon III furniture — endlessly imitated
- Chaïm Soutine, whom she and her husband supported for years
- Soutine had been his neighbour at La Ruche; the circles overlapped
- The shop is gone; exterior only
Timeline
The Castaing shop and salon operate on the rue du Cherche-Midi.
Soutine dies; the Castaing collection of his work is the largest in private hands.
On the map
Questions before you go
Who was Madeleine Castaing?
A decorator, collector and patron whose Left Bank shop doubled as a salon. She and her husband supported Chaïm Soutine for years and owned the largest private collection of his paintings.
People who knew this place
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