Prince Albert II presented Nicolas Daubanes with the Prince of Monaco – Villa Medici creation grant during a ceremony at the Princely Palace on 18 March 2026. Nicolas Dauberies, an artist in residence at Villa Medici, was awarded with €30,000.
The grant, a result of a partnership established in 2024 between the French Academy in Rome and the Prince’s Palace, was created to provide support to one of the Villa Medici’s resident artists by commissioning them to create an original work.
“By supporting an artist-in-residence at the Villa Medici each year, we affirm our conviction that artistic creation is an essential space for freedom, reflection, and transmission. The project to be undertaken by Nicolas Daubanes fully illustrates this ambition: to foster a dialogue between heritage, memory, and a contemporary perspective,” said Salim Zeghdar, President of the Advisory Committee for Collections and Artistic Heritage of the Prince’s Palace of Monaco.
Nicolas Dauberies is a visual artist, born in 1983 in France, who works in drawing, installation, and video. For the Prince of Monaco – Villa Medici Creation Grant, Nicolas Daubanes will be developing the project Le feu intérieur (The Inner Fire), inspired by architecture and collections from the Villa Medici. Works by artists associated with the Villa, such as François-Marius Granet, Camille Corot, Diego Velázquez, and the engravings of Piranesi will be revisited by Daubanes using the photogram technique.
“This unprecedented partnership between the Principality of Monaco and the Villa Medici marks our shared commitment to championing contemporary creation in all its forms and reaffirms the essential role of artists in our societies to both enhance and challenge the world,” said Sam Stourdzé, Director of Villa Medici.
Nicolas Daubanes’s work explores the themes of confinement, resistance, and memory. He recently had a solo exhibition at the Panthéon in Paris titled Ombre est lumière. Mémoires des lieux (Shadow is Light. Memories of Places).
The Prince of Monaco – Villa Medici Creation Grant also pays tribute to a figure closely linked to both the Principality and the Academy: the Monegasque painter Jean-Baptiste Vignali (1762-1799). He was the winner of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture prize and was invited to the French Academy in Rome in 1782.
