The pagoda of a Chinese artist who took refuge in Rambouillet

Chez Tchen Gi-Vane, a Chinese pagoda near Paris

It is an enclave dedicated to traditional Chinese culture. In Rambouillet, number 3 rue Pasteur houses the treasures of Tchen Gi-Vane. Pianist, painter and poet, the Chinese artist had created a unique and secluded place there with her husband Philippe Bertrand.

Fleeing Mao Zedong’s Regime

Tchen Gi-Vane was born in 1924, the daughter of a father who was a great newspaper publisher in the Republic of China, Cheng Shewo. A graduate of the Shanghai Higher School of Music, she went on tour in France with a Hong Kong music group and met her husband, the French engineer Philippe Bertrand (1926-2023). They married and settled permanently in Rambouillet, surrounded by the young woman’s works of art which were regularly loaned to the National Museum of Modern Art. For Tchen Gi-Vane, it was also a way out in her escape from Maoism.

A great couple of collectors

Passionate about Asian culture, the couple designed the Wan You Lou pagoda in the garden of their house in Rambouillet in 1976. The building was built according to traditional Chinese architecture, on three levels with an octagonal roof; they collected works of art and musical instruments. Tchen Gi-Vane and Philippe Bertrand received a large number of friends, dignitaries and art lovers within the walls of the pagoda, a true place of life and exchange now classified as French cultural heritage. The artist’s name was on everyone’s lips in 1981 when she ran for president. Bernard Delattre wrote in l’Écho Républicain: “She ran in the French presidential elections to promote the ideas of Confucius (…) She was a fierce opponent of the Beijing regime.”

Tchen Gi-Vane passed away on February 1, 2021 at the age of 97 — part of his jewelry and clothing collection was auctioned off on June 10.