A corner of Venice on the banks of the Seine: a delightful unique treasure house full of masterpieces, some created and acquired in the former doge’s city, but more often elsewhere in Italy and abroad. Splendid works by artists such as Vittore Carpaccio, Andrea Mantegna, and Carlo Crivelli, and even two lions of Saint Mark’s crowning the mafgnificent frescoes created by Giambattista Tiepolo for the historic Villa Contarini. The Musée Jacquemart-Andrè is the outcome of the judicious choices of two great collectors, who each year travelled to Italy to acquire art works. They were an unusual well-known couple in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th century. She was an artist of humble origins, and he a prominent banker (in 1871, with Baron Rothschild, he collected 5 million gold francs to pay Bismarck as war reparation to prevent the Prussians from occupying Paris). Having met when she was invited to paint his portrait, they were to join the ranks of the most celebrated art collectors in the world. Indeed their collection of italian art (mainly Florentine and Venetian works) is today considered among the finest in the whole France.