Musée de Picardie

The Musée de Picardie is the main museum of Amiens and Picardy, in France. It is located at 48, rue de la République, Amiens. Its collections stretch from prehistory to the 19th century and form one of the largest regional museums in France.

Second Empire style facade of the Musée de Picardie.
Leda and the swan by Jules Roulleau.
Work, by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1863.
Portrait of a Man, El Greco, circa 1600-1610
Self-portrait, Maurice Quentin de La Tour, circa 1751
Portrait d'un jeune seigneur cuirassé, Pourbus Pieter, tableau, 3e quart 16e siècle

The museum is closed until the end of 2019 for building work.

The museum was founded as the musée Napoléon in 1802 (the year of the Treaty of Amiens). However, the museum building, is later, being purpose-built as a regional museum (one of France's first such buildings) between 1855 and 1867. The Second Empire style building was designed by architects Henri Parent and Arthur-Stanislas Diet. It was built thanks to action by the Société des Antiquaires de Picardie, keen to give the city somewhere to house the collections the society had gathered over decades.

Collections

Archaeology

Housed in the basement from

  • ancient Greece
  • ancient Egypt, with around 400 objects (of which 257 are on show), mainly derived from the collection of the painter Albert Maignan and from national collections placed here
  • the archaeology of Picardy

Medieval

12th to 16th centuries, with the main pieces being the Puys d'Amiens, masterpieces of Gothic art from Amiens Cathedral.

Fine arts

French and foreign painters from 17th to 20th centuries, with artists such as:

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes painted monumental frescoes on the museum's main staircase and first floor galleries,[1] including the two large symbolic frescoes Peace and War (1861) and Work and Rest (1863).[2]

Musée de l'Hôtel de Berny

Located near Amiens Cathedral, the Hôtel de Berny is an annexe of the Musée de Picardie.

Notes and references
  1. Evene.fr - Toute la culture. "Musée de Picardie".
  2. Source : Léon Riotor, Puvis de Chavannes, Librairie Larousse (1914)

Bibliography
  • (in French) Matthieu Pinette, Couleurs d'Italie, couleurs du Nord - Peintures étrangères des musées d'Amiens, édition Somogy, Paris, 2001.

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