National museum of Asian-Guimet Arts

The National museum of Asian-Guimet Arts , called Musée Guimet before is an Asian museum of Art located at Paris, 6, place d'Iéna in the XVIe district.

It was constituted on the initiative of Emile Guimet (1836 - 1918), industrialist and scholar Lyons. Thanks to voyages in Egypt, in Greece, then a round the world tour in 1876, with stages with the Japan, in China and India it joins together important collections of objets d'art which it presented to Lyon starting from 1879.

Thereafter, it specializes in the Asian objets d'art and transfers its collections in the museum which it makes build in Paris and which is inaugurated in 1889. In 1927, the Guimet museum is attached to the Direction of the museums of France and gathers of another collections and legacy of private individuals. It is from now on the largest collection of Asian art out of Asia. The Guimet museum manages also the the Buddhist Pantheon - Hotel Heidelbach near and the Musée to Ennery devoted them also to Asian art. However, whereas the collections are distributed in the museum per geographical era and according to a stylistic evolution having for goal knowledge of the history of arts of the Asia, the approach of the Buddhist Pantheon is related to the original project of Emile Guimet since his goal is, by the object-choice particularly meaning on the iconographic level, the knowledge of the religions, in fact those of the forms of Bouddhisme S natives of the Far East (China - Japan).

It should be noted that at present the collections of the museum, relatively exhaustive in the field of the geographical distribution of the Eastern Asia, are limited to the archaeological artefacts or of old arts and exclude the contemporary art and the ethnological objects. One can note however a form of diversification with the creation of a department of the Textile S thanks to the legacy of Krishnâ Riboud. A place, although not very important, is also sometimes granted to the contemporary art in margin of the temporary exhibitions. With regard to the ethnological collections or those in margin of the large cultural currents and monk (production of the populations formerly described as tribal), it will find from now on their place within the framework of the Musée of the quay Branly.

Adapting to the evolution of the world musual in which the missions of the Museums extend to those from an arts center, the Museum organizes cultural events related to the cultures of Asia: cinematographic retrospectives, recitals and concerts, spectacles of dance and theater.

Departments of conservation

Arts of the Afghanistan and the Pakistan (1st stage)

With for core of the collection the acquisitions made by Alfred Foucher as those of the archaeological excavations of the DAFA (French archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan) this collection is devoted to the artistic productions gréco-Buddhist kingdoms located in the actual positions of Afghanistan and Pakistan:

arts of the Gandhara (of which one of the florets is the famous Bodhisattva Foucher),
vestiges of the archeological site of Hadda, characterized by the use of the Stuc, destroyed today after the American bombardments in Afghanistan. (Genius with the flowers, Stupa),
the treasure of Begram, collected by Joseph Hackin in 1937 within the framework of the DAFA. This treasure containing of the Ivory S of the style of Mathura (of which specimens were found with Pompéi), of the Chinese Laque S of the time Han as of the Roman Verrerie is an essential testimony of the dense commercial exchanges which the area knew at the time.

Arts of the Himâlaya

With for core the collection of statuettes in Bronze coming from Emile Guimet, enriched in 1912 by bronzes and the paintings brought back by Jacques Bacot, this collection is devoted to the primarily religious art of the Tibet and the Nepal: pertaining to worship statuettes, objects, Thang-ka.

Southeast Asia: ground floor

This collection, one of richest of the museum, which opens the visit, is for its major part devoted to the statuary and the Khmer architectural decoration. It also comprises, though in less proportions, testimonys of the Art of the Champa, Thailand (art of Dvaravati, Ayodhaya, Ayuthya), Indonesia, Burma and Laos.

China

One finds there ancient sculptures, vases and models, Bodhisattva as well as painted rollers (one of the ancestors of the cartoon).

Korea

India

archaeological vestiges

sculptor

Objets d'art

Painting S, Illumination S and Handwritten S

Riboud collection - Textile S

Japan

This collection comprises in particular folding screens, Sumi-e, statues of tenno and Bosatsu as well as masks of No.

Library

gallery

Random links: