Mysterious, magnificent, and forgotten. That was Sigrid de Montrond's first impression of Palazzo Bragadin. But she saw past the15th-century structure’s neglect, envisioning what it could become–and not just from a restoration standpoint. The palazzo offered the possibility of a more permanent place in Venice, the city that had captivated her for over a decade.
"More than thirty years ago, I came to Venice for Carnival,” she shares. “I immediately fell in love with the city. What began as a fascination gradually became something much deeper."
Venice seemed to embody everything de Montrond loved: a faded grandeur, a reverence for craftsmanship, a certain theatricality. As an interior decorator and designer of costumes and eveningwear, she found endless inspiration in the city’s nuanced history, ornate textiles, and decorative traditions. Over the years, she returned again and again, forming friendships with some of Venice’s oldest families, as well as with artists and figures connected to the Biennale and the Film Festival. She dreamed of having a house there, and some unshakable feeling convinced her that Palazzo Bragadin would be it.
"My husband thought there was far too much work to do," de Montrond recalls. He returned to Paris, but she stayed behind for weeks, wandering through the rooms and imagining what could be restored, moved, or altered.
After a drawn-out bureaucratic process, they acquired the palazzo in 2003. The first challenge: making it habitable again. Nearly six months were spent repairing infrastructure and stabilizing the foundations, yet de Montrond resists the notion that she transformed it. "The house was already beautiful,” she notes, “so I would never say that I changed everything.”
Her approach was one of stewardship rather than reinvention. Details, including 20th-century frescoes by Giuseppe Borsato, along with earlier works and original fixtures, were preserved wherever possible; essential systems were updated, and the palazzo gradually reawakened as the rooms were furnished with art, antiques, textiles, and treasured objects.
"I wanted the palazzo to be more than a place to live," she says. "I wanted to restore its soul, host private exhibitions, invite artists, and continue my creative work while bringing the house back to life."
Over time, Palazzo Bragadin became just that: a salon where artists, collectors, writers, designers, and friends come together for candlelit dinners and spirited conversations. During the Biennale and throughout the year, the palazzo hosts exhibitions and cultural events and welcomes guests by appointment only.
But the palazzo isn’t the only remnant from Venice’s past that de Montrond has coaxed back to life. In 2022, a cache of neglected objects at a Murano storehouse caught her attention. Thousands of antique chandelier components and decorative glass elements had amassed over decades, cast aside by changing tastes and unrealized commissions.
She began sifting through the fragments, some more than a century old, arranging flowers, leaves, pendants, and other ornamental motifs into objects. The first was a lampadario, or chandelier, for her home in France, followed by other works that decorate her home in Venice.
Today, she keeps a workspace at the Murano storehouse, where she spends hours among shelves of forgotten glass. As with Palazzo Bragadin, de Montrond lets a respect for what already exists guide her work. She doesn’t radically transform the glass–she fashions it into something new, preserving the original craftsmanship into its second life.
“The most beautiful pieces are often from the 1940s and 1950s,” she shares. “I don't know exactly why, but I find them extraordinary.”
De Montrond is equally drawn to their shapes. Everything, she notes, was once made by hand. “Today, many things are made using molds,” she says.“When something is made by hand, each piece is slightly different. That difference creates delicacy and beauty.” With the belief that these objects are too exquisite not to be shared, de Montrond showcases them at Salon Visconti, the family-owned gallery that she has overseen for over a decade on Paris’ left bank.
Her appreciation for individuality is also evident in her necklaces, for which she strings antique Murano chandelier ornaments on a difficult-to-source material that’s part nylon and part strong thread. Designed for illuminating Venetian palazzi, the pieces now adorn the body, cascading dramatically down the torso or gathering at the collarbone.
Her curtain tiebacks came about almost by accident: as a necklace gifted to a friend who suggested repurposing it for drapery. In their finished form, voluminous clusters of translucent glass cinch the fabric, refracting the light much as they once would have from overhead. To her knowledge, she’s the only person creating Murano tiebacks.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the quality de Montrond most admires in antique Murano glass is its transparency. She’s particularly taken with the pale grey translucence of older pieces, which reminds her of water: what she misses the most when she’s away. “I miss the sound of the water beneath my windows, the boats, and all the traffic on the canals,” she says. “It's something unique in the world.”
It’s not the monuments that resonate with her but the atmosphere: the rhythms, reflections, and daily rituals, all of which have come to influence her sensibility, her home, and her work. “I didn't want simply to own a palazzo and live in it like a tourist,” she emphasizes. “I wanted to become part of Venice.”
She has. And, in turn, Venice has become part of her.
xxx