The Musée de la Toile de Jouy (Jouy Printed Fabric Museum) was founded in 1977 at the initiative of Mayor Jacques Toutain. It was intended to commemorate the famous Manufacture des Toiles de Jouy (Jouy Printed Fabric Factory), founded in 1760 by entrepreneur and printer Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf.
The museum, then called the "Oberkampf Museum", was first established at the Chateau of Montebello, under the direction of Josette Bredif, the first curator and preeminent historian of Jouy fabrics.
In 1991, at the initiative of Mayor Monique Le Saint, the museum was moved to the Chateau of Eglantine, which allowed it to expand its scope.
The Chateau of Eglantine, a Perfect Setting for the Museum.
Marshal Canrobert, General and aide-de-camp of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, was in possession of the Chateau of Eglantine from 1882 to 1890. Following the death on August 6th, 1889 of his young wife, née Flora MacDonald, the Marshal sold the chateau and left Jouy-en-Josas. The property was then bought by Emile Francq, a bourgeois Parisian who had owned "The Cauldrons", an old farmhouse located on the hillside on the other side of the Bièvre river. He then had the Chateau of Eglantine rebuilt in 1891-1892 by Alfred Vaudoyer, as marked on a plaque affixed to the building.
Alfred Vaudoyer était l’un des membres d’une dynastie d’architectes commencée par Antoine Laurent (1756-1846), pensionnaire de l’Académie de France à Rome. Cette famille a fait l’objet d’une exposition au musée d’Orsay. Plusieurs membres ont eu des maisons de campagne à Jouy. Deux demeures importantes subsistent aux Metz (quartier de Jouy), dont l’une « La Garenne des Metz » est également attestée comme étant l’œuvre d’Alfred Vaudoyer dans un tout autre style que le château de l’Eglantine.
The former estate of Marshal Canrobert was bought by the municipality of Jouy-en-Josas on October 10, 1979, and converted into a museum in 1991.
The garden adjoining the building was restored in 2009 and opened for museum visitors.
A contemporary extension by the architects Cuno Brullmann and Arno Fougeres-Lavergno, called the Orangery, has been added to the historic building to expand the space devoted to the museum.
A link between the fabric factory and the chateau has been created in the form of a flowerbed in horizontal bands, the work of artist Jean-Max Albert. This evocation of fabric spread across the fields, bleaching in the sun, also gives an idea of the profusion of colours that would then have covered the village.
