De la vigne au verre. Le vin chez Balzac

Maison de Balzac musée et bibliothèque

Omnipresent in 19th-century society, wine stands out as a recurring motif in Balzac's work: it recounts an era, reveals social ambitions and accompanies both pleasures and excesses. The exhibition "De la vigne au verre. Le vin chez Balzac", presented by the Maison de Balzac, highlights this abundant presence of wine in the Balzacian universe. Through more than 80 works and objects (paintings, engravings, posters, winemaking equipment, and tableware), the exhibition sheds light on Balzac's reflection on viticulture and on the place of wine in the French art of living, from everyday moments to grand occasions. In the 19th century, wine, like bread, constituted a pillar of nutrition. A symbol of quality of life, it was also perceived as a public health issue. At the same time, the growth of vineyards was accompanied by major technical and commercial innovations, making wine a vehicle for wealth creation. Balzac offers a plural reading of it, by turns economic, sociological and artistic, without ever adopting a moralistic stance, through a great diversity of literary forms: brief journalistic essays such as the Traité des excitants modernes; novels largely devoted to the subject (L'Illustre Gaudissart; Eugénie Grandet); evocations found in passing on a page (La Muse du département; Illusions perdues; La Rabouilleuse…); correspondence with his friends, etc. The exhibition unfolds across the museum's 4 exhibition rooms, each dedicated to a specific theme.

Source: Paris Open Data ↗