Guimet Museum

The Guimet Museum in Paris, 2005.

The Guimet Museum (French: Musée national des arts asiatiques [MNAAG] or Musée Guimet) is a museum of Asian art located at 6, place d'Iéna in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. It has one of the largest collections of Asian art outside Asia.

History

Panoramic view of the library in the Guimet Museum.

Founded by Émile Étienne Guimet, an industrialist, the museum first opened at Lyon in 1879[1] but was later transferred to Paris, opening in the place d'Iéna in 1889.[2] Devoted to travel, Guimet was in 1876 commissioned by the minister of public instruction to study the religions of the Far East, and the museum contains many of the fruits of this expedition, including a fine collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain and many objects relating not merely to the religions of the East but also to those of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. One of its wings, the Panthéon Bouddhique, displays religious artworks.

Some of the museum's artifacts were collected from Southeast Asia by French authorities during the colonial period.[3]

From December 2006 to April 2007, the museum harboured collections of the Kabul Museum, with archaeological pieces from the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum, and the Indo-Scythian treasure of Tillia Tepe.

Works of art of the museum

Greco-Buddhist art

Serindian art

Chinese art

Indian art

Southeast Asian art

See also

Notes

  1. History of the Museum (in French).
  2. National museum Arts asiatiques – Guimet, Marie-Catherine Rey et al. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des Musées nationaux, 2001, translation by John Adamson, ISBN 2711838978, Chronology, p. 6.
  3. Patrick Howlett-Martin, « Où ira le buste de Néfertiti ? », Le Monde diplomatique, no 700, juillet 2012, p. 27.
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Coordinates: 48°51′55″N 2°17′38″E / 48.86528°N 2.29389°E / 48.86528; 2.29389

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