The Annonciade Museum reminds us that the village of Saint-Tropez has been one of the most active centre of "avant-garde" painting at the beginning of the XXth Century, thanks to Paul Signac who, on board his ship l'Olympia, discovered this little fishing harbour in 1892. He fell under the spell of the place, bought a house, la Hune, which he turned into his studio and invited many other painters to join him: Cross, Matisse, Derain, Marquet.
The collection on show, ranges from 1890 to 1950 and is both of surprisingly high standard and homogeneity.
The artists displayed have based their work upon the study of colour as well as shape, the whole collection is composed of top range pictures, essentially belonging to the pointillist, Nabis and Fauvist movements.
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The Citadel of Saint-Tropez is a typical example of military engineering the Army knew not what to do with and in addition to the inadequate number of men in garrison, general Politics led the Tropezian population to prefer self defence. Too costly for the Kingdom, Empire or the Republic, the Citadel caused displeasure to the elders. One must recall that during the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries, the Tropezian population structure was unusual, the large majority of the men were sailors, spending long periods at sea, either in the Merchant or Royal navy and therefore knew how to fight. Most of them kept weapons at home, as it appears in the records: a blunderbuss, a cutlass or a sword…Providing the King left them his cannons, they were willing to fight alone. In 1637, they defeated the Spanish galleys, in 1596 and 1652 they took the fortress over from dissidents, again in 1652, with a force of only 200 mem, they fought off galleys coming from Toulon. No matter if they got help from a few outside forces, the winds or their Patron Saint, the glorious History is all theirs.
From the beginning of its building, the Citadel inspired mitigated feelings amongst civilians, granted, it was a protection but it also spied on them and sometimes rebelled. A Royal spot of land, it was regarded as alien to the City. Nowadays, it benefits from the fame of Saint-Tropez.

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This museum was created by Dany Lartigue, son of the famous photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue, and grandson of André Messager, member of the French Academy, manager of the Paris Opera and close friend of Fauré and Debussy. The butterflies are presented in their former family residence, now the property of the Town of Saint-Tropez. In this typical Tropezian home, a fabulous selection of all the French diurnal species is on show. They have been assembled by Dany Lartigue over the past decades. Learn more