Trader, art collector, botanist, and a tainted past
A quick stroll through the Villa Vauban reveals the extent to which the gallery benefited from Jean-Pierre Pescatore’s (1793-1855) impressive donation of art. Take away his gift to the Luxembourgish people and, quite possibly, you would take away the very existence of the Vauban as we see it today.
Crowd pleasers, like the marble sculptures of Daphnis and Chloe and Bacchus; old master paintings such as Young Neapolitans, A Mother’s Joy and The Moselle Valley were all part of his bequeathal to Luxembourg. But who was this philanthropist, and why did he give away his life’s collection to his native city?
A quick dip into the paintings exhibited at the Vauban tells you a little more. For, hanging in the gallery is the man, wearing his Légion d'honneur medal with pride. If you lack time to visit the original itself, don’t fret, for the same portrait makes it into the digitally manipulated montage at the gallery’s entrance, along with a number of the acquisitions he left behind.
Born and bred in Luxembourg, Pescatore was the fourth child of Dominique Pescatore and Marie-Madelaine Geschwind, merchant traders who settled in the city. Like his father and grandfather before him, Pescatore entered the tobacco trade, Luxembourg’s leading industry at the time.
When that business lost its edge, because of a change in the rules abroad, Pescatore moved to Paris to enter the French market. It was an astute move, helped by his close relationship with the French authorities at the Régie française des tabacs, who granted him long-term permission to import Havana tobacco. Over time, he became a French citizen, bought a château and founded a bank. But for all his wealth and status, he was never able to produce an heir.
To fit his bourgeois lifestyle, Pescatore began amassing an impressive art collection. Acquiring works from the King of the Netherlands and Louis Philippe I, including 17th-century Dutch paintings, contemporary French history paintings and sculptures and drawings.
Along the way, he adopted another passion that may go some way to explaining Luxembourg's fascination with orchids - plant collecting. With the help of Belgian botanist, horticulturist and rare orchid hunter Jean Linden, Pescatore funded a series of expeditions that helped him collect and display these plants. He even had a genus of orchids, Pescatorea, named after him.
Yet nowhere in the gallery of the Villa Vauban, did I find a mention of how much Pescatore’s wealth was indebted to slavery on the tobacco farms of Havana.
Even his personally funded plant-hunting expeditions were linked to the practice: plants and seeds taken from the colonies were often transported on the same ships as captured people. The ‘discovery’ of native plants and flowers by European explorers in foreign lands led to their renaming and recategorisation, often in Latin - hence Pescatorea, named after Linden’s wealthy patron.
The systematic erasure of local names and the appropriation of local knowledge silenced the narrative of native people in preference for a European one - effectively rewriting history. I, for one, would like to hear more about Pescatore’s darker aspects and the accumulation of his wealth in Luxembourg to acknowledge those who have been written out of his history.
In spite of his French citizenship and ties overseas, Pescatore never turned his back on his birthplace, and after his death in 1855, he left the considerable sum of half a million francs and his art collection to Luxembourg City.
At his request, the city built a retirement home for the elderly with the money, which became the Fondation Pescatore. His art collection was initially housed on the first floor of the town hall. In the 1950s it was moved to the newly refurbished Villa Vauban - where it can be seen to this day.
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