Discovery of decorations painted in a house in Corcelles (ne)

In Corcelles, in the canton of Neuchâtel, transformation works at La Grand’Rue 31 revealed hidden treasures. This building, put under protection for a long time compared to its exceptional Renaissance facade, houses ground ceilings and painted decorations which adorned the interiors at the 16^e and 17th centuries.

The house, formed of the current n ° 31 and 32 of the Grand’rue de Corcelles, constitutes an exceptional set of Renaissance style whose construction intervenes in two stages in the second half of the 16th^e century, according to a press release from the canton. This building was built by the descendants of Jean Barillier, who died in 1553, member of a recognized patrician family, extinct at the beginning of the 18th^e century.

The analyzes carried out by the Cantonal Office of Built and Intangible Heritage (OCPI) with the collaboration of the Office of Cantonal Archeology (OARC) indicate that it is a opulent gentlehomer formed by a house of master built in 1565, between a courtyard at the monumental portal and a large rural building. A few years later, around 1600, the house was extended above the courtyard, giving the whole its imposing current facade on the street side.

The volume of constructions, their decorative richness and the quality of the facades indicate an ambitious and ostentatious achievement, which is reminiscent of contemporary wine castles. Despite the almost half-millennial elapsed, all of the facades, the frame and the ceilings as well as a significant part of the interior fittings of the 16^e century have so far been preserved.

Under its imposing roof of 1586, the main building is made up of two residential floors with particularly high ceilings and decorated with molded joists, surmounting a large winemaker cellar. The latter, one of the most remarkable in the region for this era, is made up of a cellar with two spans of three vaults of edges, supported by columns with marquee – a picturesque development at the origin of a tenacious legend, who wanted to recognize a chapel dependent on the neighboring priory -, associated with a large press and its astonishing granite tank^e century.

The first floor, or beautiful floor, welcomed in particular the living rooms and ceremonies, the large stove and the small stove, which are distinguished on the facade by the development of their windows and, inside, by the quality of their arrangements. Under the woodwork of 18^e century of the large stove, were found the well-preserved vestiges of several painted decorations, in particular an ocher-yellow-colored device dressing up the embrasures at 16^e century and a polychrome decor of floral garlands adorning the walls around 1700.

Later, around 1770, these sets were masked by woodwork accompanying the installation of an elegant catal stove, perhaps attributable to the punch-decorator Rodolphe Landolt (1742-1821). The stove was powered by the imposing fireplace in the large adjacent kitchen, the reborn coat in the shape of a cornice entablature is characteristic of the beautiful regional residences at the end of the 16th^e century and early 17^e century. The same ocher-yellow faux-appareil decorations adorned all the embrasures of the building, as brilliantly testify to those which have been fully preserved in one of the second floor rooms.

Among the many graffiti of 17^e century engraved in the painted coating which remains to be deciphered, there are dates, initials, intriguing geometric rosettes or more prosaically, according to the interpretation of the Office of State Archives (OAEN), the accounts of a sheet of sheets.