Château de Vallauris

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Vallauris, on Place de la Libération, occupies the site of a former priory dependent on the Abbey of Lérins, mentioned as early as the 12th century; its chapel retains elements from the 12th, 16th and 18th centuries. After the village was repopulated in 1501 by the prior of Lérins, Raynier Lascaris, the building was restored in the 16th century and transformed into a Renaissance-style seigneurial residence, one of the few in the region from this period, with a south façade featuring two round towers topped with pepper-pot roofs and an interior staircase with Florentine-style balusters. An entrance portico was added in the 18th century. The priors of Lérins ceased to reside there in 1787. The castle was acquired in 1810 by Honoré Daumas, whose family embellished it, before it ceased to be private property in 1974. The façades and roofs, as well as the interior staircase, were listed (inscrits) as historic monuments by decree of 23 May 1951, while the chapel was classified (classée) by decree of 2 November 1951. Since 1959, this chapel has housed the Musée national Pablo Picasso, where the large painted compositions War and Peace (La Guerre et la Paix), created by the artist in 1952, are displayed. The rest of the building, rehabilitated in 1977, houses the Magnelli municipal museum and the ceramics museum.