A house standing on 27 Madbagha Street, in downtown Cairo, ornate with striking Islamic and Gothic-style architecture, was once a gleaming beacon of innovation—an epicentre for Egypt’s modern art movement. Today, only the ghostly past of Cairo’s Villa Medici remains: a memory standing on the now-renamed Sherif Street sandwiched between two towering structures, left derelict and abandoned. Although Cairo’s Villa Medici lies unassuming at present, the tale behind this venue speaks volumes of far-reaching historical and cultural influence on the development of Egypt’s modern art movement. A New Age for Egyptian Art In the late 1800s, Cairo was becoming a magnet for orientalists, egyptologists and art connoisseurs of the highest pedigree. An extravagant French industrialist and a Cairo-based resident, Alphonse-Léopold, widely known as Baron Alphonse Delort de Gléon was profoundly attracted to Egyptian art and culture. According to an article by Rawi magazine, Gleon had a vision for a new hub for creative and artistic communities in Cairo, a cercle artistique that would later come to embody Egypt’s first art society. Léopold was renowned for having “replicated the ‘Villa Medici’—the home of the French Academy in Rome—in Cairo” and created…
