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The Maison des Musiciens

The House of Taittinger is pleased to announce that its historic Reims’ property, the Maison des Musiciens, is to be restored to its original splendour, complete with a façade featuring five statues dating from the 13th Century.

The house stands beside the Demeure des Comtes de Champagne (residence of the Counts of Champagne) on the Rue du Tambour and was originally built as a lodging house. Despite its name, it had no particular connection to music and was only called the Maison des Musiciens because of its resemblance to the Maison de Saint-Julien des Ménétriers à Paris (the ménétriers were a group of musicians and jongleurs who formed a professional guild in 1321).

The five statues destined to embellish its façade are currently exhibited at the Musée Saint-Remi and count among the few examples of secular imagery in medieval art. In terms of appearance (polychrome) volume and draping they are very like the musician statues in Reims Cathedral, which was well under construction by the 13th Century, no doubt prompting the owner of the Maison des Musiciens to use the same craftsmen.

The statues were dismantled in the First World War before the house was entirely destroyed in 1917. All that remained was a fragment of the ogive, which ultimately served as the basis for the house’s reconstruction to designs by architect Frédéric Coqueret with the approval of the architects of the Bâtiments de France.

The planned works will be conducted jointly by the property’s owners, the House of Taittinger, and the “Association Renaissance de la Maison des Musiciens de Reims”.