Day 19 We still lionize bankers

As a result of the Global Financial Crisis there has been an ongoing controversy about the salaries of bankers. Sadly this is not a new story. In the late 19^th century a bachelor banker by the name of Edouard Andre set up house in a new and fashionable part of Paris on the wide and prestigious Boulevard Haussmann. Edouard’s house is now a museum and it shows that the bonuses paid to bankers of the 19^th century must have been even greater than today.

The house was grand, but elegant rather than ostentatious. It is set back from the road, which is unusual in Paris as most houses are built right onto the street. The architect’s aim was to make it more prominent and more easily noticed. It was lovely to stand in front of the house and imagine the array of coaches and buggies which would have brought guests up and around a sweeping cobblestone driveway to the main entrance of the house and then leave by another ramp on the opposite side. It was designed to avoid traffic jams.

The house would have made any Wall Street banker envious. The first three huge formal rooms all had walls that were technological marvels of their day as they could hydraulically descend into the floor. This opened up the space so that the owners could entertain up to 1000 people. The music room had a wonderful gallery level, which provided a chamber from which music seemed to be heard from the heavens. The architect who designed the house had missed out on getting the job of designing the Paris Opera House and his revenge was to include in the design of this house an extraordinary staircase, which wrapped around a huge fresco. The fresco had been moved in its entirety from Venice.

Edouard loved art and this led to him deciding to have his own portrait painted. Nelie Jacquemart, was the artist who was chosen to do the portrait and she not only impressed him with her talent but also with her beauty and after a period of time, they were married. Once married they set about turning Edouard’s already impressive art collection into one of the most important private collections in 19^th century France. The eclectic collection includes sculptures, furniture, tapestries, frescoes and even intricate wooden inlaid church pews. The highlights of the collection were paintings by Renoir, Bortticelli, Titan and many others. Eduoard and Nelie traveled the world, but they especially loved Florence and Venice and they went there every year to spend their annual art budget that was normally 3 to 5 times larger than the government’s allocated budget for its national collection in places like the Louvre. Their travels took them further a field to the Middle East, China and Africa. After Edouard’s death his widow continued to keep collecting and traveling and enjoyed a trip to India and Burma.

The couple had no children and Nelie, who inherited his fortune, donated her home and art collection to the nation on her death. It would be nice to think that if we continue to overpay bankers some might use their wealth in a positive way to benefit generations to come, as Edouard and Nelie did.