The Visitandines' Apothecary

Historic site and monument

EHPAD Sainte-Jeanne de Chantal
Place des Visitandines
38460 Crémieu

This care home occupies a former Visitandine convent which was established in 1627 by Saint Joan of Chantal, the grandmother of Madame de Sévigné. It houses a number of pharmaceutical jars in an 18th-century apothecary whose woodwork is listed as historical heritage.

The Sisters of the Visitation are not a hospital order, but they do provide care for their
residents and therefore need an apothecary. In 1715, an apothecary whose name is unknown
purchased walnut woodwork. The upper section, the powder box, houses 19th-century
glass jars. Its drawers were used to store dried herbs. But it is especially on the top shelf
that the most beautiful and oldest earthenware pieces are displayed: chevrettes, cannon pots,
albarelli… dating from the 16th and 18th centuries. All these jars contained electuaries, robs, syrups,
ointments… to treat the sick according to the principles of galenic medicine practiced from
antiquity all the way to Pasteur! The ceiling, whose beams are decorated with blue foliage motifs, is a repainting
carried out by André Coquet in 1862. The original design most certainly dates from the 17th century. It depicts,
inside bulbous vases, monuments in Cremolans, including a view of the castle based on a drawing by
Claude Chastillon, the famous topographer of Henry IV. Two 17th- and 18th-century walnut pieces of furniture, painted
or varnished, frame canvases attributed to the 17th-century painter Sébastien Thune II: “The Holy Family”
and “Saint Peter Leaving His Prison, Guided by an Angel.” These paintings underwent restoration in
2012. Other objects and curiosities date from the 19th century, such as surgical instruments and a
neoclassical fountain. This former pharmacy, after being dismantled and sold during the Revolution,
was rebuilt beginning in 1859. Some of the woodwork was recovered from the town’s pharmacist.
History does not tell us whether the jars were already in place before the Revolution. Nevertheless,
it is the only apothecary in the Isère department to preserve these earthenware pieces in situ, likely crafted by
Italian master potters in workshops in Lyon.