The Forney Library (French: Bibliothèque Forney) is part of the network of heritage and specialized libraries of the City of Paris.

Collection

The Forney Library's collection is dedicated to the decorative arts, the art and craft professions and their techniques, fine arts, graphic arts, fashion, advertising and design.

Books

230,000 volumes, including 19th century technical manuals.

Catalogs

More than 50,000 catalogs for temporary exhibitions and museums, 50,000 catalogs for public art sales from 1750 to the present day, more than 50,000 commercial catalogs (around 7,000 firms, manufacturers and distributors) since the 19th century ( Le Bon Marché,

La Redoute La Redoute is a French multi channel retailer founded by Joseph Pollet in 1837. La Redoute specialises in ready to wear apparel and home decor, La Redoute is the 2nd largest seller of women's apparel and the 3rd largest seller of linens in Fran ...

Manufrance Manufrance was the trade name of ''Manufacture Francaise d'Armes et Cycles de St.Etienne'' ("French Arms and Cycle Factory of St. Etienne"), a French mail order company which was situated in the manufacturing town of St. Etienne since 1888. P ...

, etc.), the catalogs of the main French art fairs and those of French and foreign universal exhibitions.

Journals

4,000 titles are kept (of which 300 are journals with current subscriptions), especially in the fields of architecture, design, caricature, fashion and the art market.

Posters

A collection of advertising posters from 1880 to the present day, a collection of 9,000 samples of wallpaper, printed canvases from the 18th and early 19th centuries, samples fabrics and lace, original designs of furniture and decorations (Fourdinois, Villeneuve, Maubert), a collection of postcards, popular images (such as chromolithographs and

Épinal print Épinal prints were prints on popular subjects rendered in bright sharp colours, sold in France in the 19th century. They owe their name to the fact that the first publisher of such images — — having been born in Épinal, named the ...

s) and advertising and commercial documents (labels, menus, games...).

Graphic Arts

Rare document devoted to printing, consisting of books, brochures, periodicals and more than 900 printer's catalogs illustrated with typographic characters and vignettes.

Location

The library is located at the

Hôtel de Sens The Hôtel de Sens () or Hôtel des archevêques de Sens is a 16th-century ''hôtel particulier'', or private mansion, in the Marais, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France. It nowadays houses the . History The ''hôtel'' was built to serve ...

in the

4th arrondissement of Paris The 4th arrondissement of Paris (''IVe arrondissement'') is one of the twenty arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''quatrième''. Along with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd arrondissement ...

the Marais The Marais (Le Marais ; "the marsh") is a historic district in Paris, France. Having once been an aristocratic district, it is home to many buildings of historic and architectural importance. It spreads across parts of the 3rd and 4th arr ...

History

The library is named for Aimé Samuel Forney (1819–1879), a businessman of Swiss origin particularly interested in professional training and artistic crafts who left a bequest to the City of Paris to create an institution promoting education of artisans. Founded 1886 in the heart of Faubourg Saint-Antoine, an artisan district of Paris, the premises quickly became too cramped. In 1929, the plan of transferring the library to the Hôtel de Sens was adopted, but due to the extreme state of disrepair of the building, the library did not open at the Hôtel de Sens until 1961.https://www.paris.fr/lieux/bibliotheque-forney-18

References

External links

Libraries in Paris {{France-org-stub