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One of the first homes built "outside the city walls" at the end of the seventeenth century was certainly Villa Fragonard.
This elegant late seventeenth century country house, enhanced by a magnificent garden, houses the frescoes and canvases of the famous Grasse painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (Grasse 1732, Paris 1806), his son Alexandre-évariste (Grasse 1780, Paris 1850), grandson Théophile (Paris 1806, Neuilly-sur-Seine 1876), and sister-in-law Marguerite Gérard (Grasse 1761, Paris 1837).
The collections are organised over three levels opening onto the south side of the garden.
The Provence Art and History Museum is housed in an eighteenth century mansion built by one of the oldest families of medieval Provencal nobility, the Grasse family then Grasse-Cabris combined with the Clapiers. The Marquis Jean-Paul de Clapiers-Cabris married Louise Riqueti (1769), sister of Count Mirabeau (1749-1791), deputy of the Third Estate.
The Provence art and history museum (M.A.H.P.) brings together, in the hotel Clapiers-Cabris, large collections devoted to both everyday life in Eastern Provence since prehistoric times, and Fine Arts and Decorative Arts from the 17th century to the first half of the 20th century.
Nourished by cross reflection between specialists and backers, the International Perfume Museum’s Gardens comply with the imperatives of sustainable development and the Agricultural and Landscape Heritage Interpretation Programme within the Grasse region. In these gardens, crops of species grown traditionally for perfumes lie alongside landscaped areas comprising various collections of fragrant or aromatic plants. Their primary purpose is to contribute to the conservation of the diversity of species traditionally cultivated for perfumery.
The idea of creating a conservatory for the botanical and floral heritage of the perfume industry in Grasse came about long ago.
Utility gardens, flower gardens, botanical collections that were in vogue in the nineteenth century, and scientific or test gardens like the one created by the manufacturers of the Grasse perfumery in 1920, contributed to the development of the culture of perfume.
Grasse peaked in the first part of the twentieth century, a period when many of the natural products processed by Grasse manufacturers were sourced locally. From the 1960s onwards, large international groups purchased the Grasse factories and their synthetic scents offered perfumers an increasingly rich and varied palette but the very attractive prices meant their success was often at the expense of natural products... and sometimes quality perfumes.
Rose centifolia, jasmine, tuberose, lavender, geranium, juniper, orange blossom etc; perfumes are born from plants, here or elsewhere. In the unique setting of the International Perfume Museum’s Gardens, visitors can discover and smell the species that have provided valuable raw materials for perfumery for centuries.
