Portrait Gallery

Voltaire, Jacques Necker, Joseph Bonaparte, Katharine McCormick and Bernie Cornfeld are just some of the well-known figures who have lived or stayed at Château de Prangins. In the large hallway on the first floor, these former inhabitants reappear like ghosts to surprise visitors and recount anecdotes.

Historically, the gallery of a stately home served to link separate wings together and act as a place of transition between different spaces. Often sizeable, it became somewhere to stretch one’s legs or walk around when the weather was bad. Since it was an area that everybody had to pass through, it was frequently used to hang family portraits for all to gaze at. These former functions will be respected but addressed in a contemporary way. Bringing together various individuals from the past, the presentation also sets out to recreate the château’s sense of place or its soul, which is shaped by all those who lived, wrote, dreamed, wept, studied or collected there.

In an interactive and engaging presentation, visitors will learn about lives and stories, including the means of contraception that passed through the château on their way to the United States at the instigation of the biologist, philanthropist and feminist Katharine McCormick; the collapse of mutual fund company IOS and the sensational trial of financier Bernie Cornfeld; and the role played by Jacques Necker, Louis XVI’s finance minister, on 5 May 1789, the day the Estates General opened.