« Zoom In »: A man, a woman...

The couple is an important figure in both painting and sculpture, and has been since Antiquity. Remember the famous portrait of Paquius Proculus and his wife in a fresco in the Casa di Pansa in Pompeii. Later, the Arnolfini couple became iconic under the brush of Jan van Eyck. The history of art is full of kisses, embraces, longing glances, lust-filled glances, heart-rending farewells, scenes of married and domestic life, or simply conventional representations of a man and his wife fixed on canvas for posterity and flaunting their prosperity. Immersing yourself in some of the paintings in the Villa Vauban collections is like entering the intimate world of these couples, legitimate or otherwise.