Villa Santo Sospir is a house on Cap Ferrat transformed by a guest who did not know when to stop. In 1950, its owner Francine Weisweiller invited Jean Cocteau to stay for a week. One afternoon, he drew an enormous head of Apollo above the fireplace. Weisweiller approved, so Cocteau continued across the walls, doors and ceilings, filling the villa with mythological figures drawn in charcoal and pigments mixed with raw milk. He rejected the word frescoes, calling them tattoos applied directly to the house’s skin. Cocteau returned for more than a decade. The guest eventually left; the drawings did not.
Villa Santo Sospir
