THE NOMADIC EYE: PERRIN x CUETO ROME, THE ETERNAL INTERIOR

PARIS — Following the success of The Nomadic Eye in 2025, Galerie Perrin presents a new chapter in its collaboration with curator Valérie Cueto. Entitled The Nomadic Eye: Rome, The Eternal Interior, the exhibition explores Rome not as a historical subject, but as an enduring source of inspiration for artists and collectors.

At the initiative of Philippe Perrin, a third-generation antiques dealer, the gallery is transformed into an imaginary interior where ancient sculptures, paintings, furniture, decorative arts and contemporary works enter into a free-flowing dialogue. The works are brought together not chronologically, but through their formal, intellectual and poetic resonances.

Valérie Cueto’s curatorial vision favors a sensitive approach to art history, bringing centuries into dialogue within a single space. Here, her work meets Philippe Perrin’s expertise in European art from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, giving rise to an exhibition in which scholarship and a contemporary perspective echo one another.

Spanning antiquity to the twenty-first century, The Nomadic Eye II reveals the enduring legacy of Rome through a journey in which each work contributes to a timeless interior inspired by palazzi, collectors’ homes and artists’ studios.

More than an exhibition, The Nomadic Eye II: Rome, The Eternal Interior invites visitors to discover Rome as a way of seeing the world: a living memory, a source of creation and an eternal interior.

Robert Rauschenberg, Anniversary (Salvage), 1984, acrylique sur toile marouflée sur carton, 125,7 × 210,8 cm (49½ × 83 in), Masque de Méduse, Italie, vers 1820, albâtre, 50 × 23 cm, Paire de bracelets à décor de spirales, Europe centrale, âge du bronze, culture des Tumuli, vers 1600–1200 av. J.-C., Paire d’obélisques, Sicile, première moitié du XVIIIᵉ siècle, bois, carton, glace, verre aglomisé, argent doré, pâte de verre et laiton, H. 79 cm, L. 19 cm, P. 19 cm (31 × 7½ × 7½ in), Diego Giacometti, Grand Duc, poignée de porte, bronze doré, Vénus, rare sculpture romaine en os, IIᵉ–IIIᵉ siècle apr. J.-C., H. 16 cm, Buste de Dionysos, d’après l’Antique, vers 1900, bronze patiné, H. 68 cm, Commode LOUIS XVI, François Fontelle (active 17th century, d. before 1696) Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche Costumed as Knight Ruggiero and Angelica, Versailles, 1664 White marble

Jusepe de Ribera, sans titre Important vase tripartite, Art romain, période julio-claudienne, Ier siècle après J.-C., marbre. H. 40 cm, Paire de vases couverts, Italie, XIXe siècle, porphyre. H. 32 cm × D. 20 cm, Portrait de l’Empereur Commode, Art romain, fin du IIe siècle après J.-C., marbre blanc. H. 29 cm, Console italienne, XVIIIe siècle Buste de Dionysos, d’après l’Antique, vers 1900, bronze patiné. H. 68 cm

THE NOMADIC EYE THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

Large Mazarin desk, Louis XIV period, c. 1695–1700 – Globe (from a pair) terrestrial and celestial, Rome, 1644 – Minerva, circle of Joseph Nollekens, England, circa 1775 – Male tau-tau statue, Toraja people, Sulawesi, Indonesia – Daniel Buren, 1983 – Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, 1969. Candlestick (from a pair), after Slodtz, France, Louis XV period - Photo © Tadzio

GALERIE PERRIN

Photo © Tadzio

Max Ernst, Cage-Bed and Screen, The Great Ignoramus, 1974 – A Presidential Dream in the Form of Poetic Confinement

Created in 1974 at the request of Swiss publisher Pierre Chave, Cage-Bed and Screen, The Great Ignoramus (Lit-cage et son paravent, Le Grand Ignorant) is one of Max Ernst’s most enigmatic works. A tutelary figure of Surrealism, Ernst here blurs the boundaries between sculpture, furniture, and installation — the piece is at once a bed, a mental prison, and a vessel of fantasy.

The work was produced in a limited edition by Modarco in Geneva. One edition was acquired by Nelson Rockefeller, then Vice President under President Gerald Ford, and installed in his official residence in Washington. That version of the surrealist bedroom is now part of the permanent collection of the White House. Another edition is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, underscoring the international resonance of this singular creation — a place where art and power converge.

Presented here in an imagined collector’s bedroom, Ernst’s cage-bed and folding screen become the focal point of a disorienting interior world — where the surrealist dream quietly infiltrates the everyday.

Rare Louis XIV console with sphinxes, c. 1700; painting by Antoni Tàpies, 1961; female Dogon sculpture, Mali, 19th century; Ressei-type half-mask (menpō), Japan, 18th century; Hira-jingasa war hat, Japan, 19th century.

Photo @tadzio

Gustave Moreau, The Triumph of Bacchus, circa 1875–76

This oil painting embodies the full symbolic richness of Gustave Moreau (1826–1898). Depicting Bacchus triumphant on a chariot drawn by panthers, the work reflects the artist’s fascination with lush mythologies and allegorical visions.

Endowed with a prestigious provenance — from the Comtesse de Roederer to Georges Wildenstein, before being seized by the Nazis and later recovered from the Altaussee salt mines by the Monuments Men — the painting bears witness to some of the darkest and most compelling chapters in European art history.

Exhibited at Galerie Georges Petit in 1906 and in Tokyo in 1971, it is referenced in all three catalogues raisonnés by Pierre-Louis Mathieu.

A rare pictorial gem, poised between mystery and splendor.