Guimet Museum – Foundation
The Guimet Museum, officially known as the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques – Guimet (National Museum of Asian Arts), was founded by the industrialist Emile Guimet.
Drawing on his many travels around the world, Émile Guimet amassed significant collections of objects and works of art, initially displayed in a museum he founded in 1879 in Lyon, his birthplace.
Aware of the need for a larger space to house his growing collections, he commissioned the construction of the Guimet Museum in Paris. The museum was inaugurated on November 23, 1889, which coincided with the closing of the fourth Exposition Universelle de Paris, for which the Eiffel Tower had been erected.
Guimet financed a large part of the museum’s construction. The architect Charles Terrier drew inspiration from the plans designed by Jules Chatron for the Lyon museum to create this harmonious Neo-Greek style building renowned for its striking rotunda.
Musée National des Arts Asiatiques
The Guimet Museum was initially founded to showcase Egyptian religions, classical antiquity, and the cultures of various Asian countries.
However, it quickly shifted its focus to Asian collections, particularly those from Korea and Tibet. From 1927 onward, under the auspices of the French Museums Directorate, the museum began to enrich its collections with art from Central Asia and China. By this time, it already possessed the largest collection of Asian art outside of Asia.
The Guimet Museum then acquired important Indochinese collections from the Musée du Trocadero, curated at the time by the explorer Louis Delaporte, as well as collections loaned by the French archaeological delegation in Afghanistan. In 1938, the museum acquired Khmer collections.
In 1945, the Guimet Museum exchanged its Egyptian collections with the Louvre for Asian art collections, turning it into one of the most important museums of Asian art in the world. Over the following decades, successive curators and generous patrons continued to enrich and expand the museum’s collections.
Guimet Museum today
The Guimet Museum also houses a remarkable library, located in a splendid rotunda and open to the public. This library and the rooftop terrace were designated historical monuments on July 11, 1979.
In 1991, the museum expanded by acquiring the building at No.19 Avenue d’Iéna to create the Pantheon Buddhique. This section primarily displays the collections assembled by Émile Guimet during his travels to Japan.
Major renovations were undertaken in 1996 to transform the museum into a modern cultural centre, capable of hosting a diverse program of temporary cultural events, such as film retrospectives, recitals, concerts, and dance performances.
Today, the Guimet Museum’s collections are recognised as the world’s most important collection of Asian art. Spread across more than 5,500 square meters of permanent galleries, the collections are presented in vast open spaces bathed in natural light.
Directions: 16th district – 6 Place Iéna
Metro station: Iéna on Line 9
Coordinates: Lat 48.865101 – Long 2.293690
Photos via Wikimedia Creative Commons: Rotunda in library by Athoune CC BY 3.0 – Ground-floor exhibition hall by Kuxu76 CC BY 2.5
