The Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art is a museum located on the residential Lighthouse Hill in Egbertville, Staten Island,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. It is home to one of the United States' most extensive collections of Himalayan artifacts. The museum was created by Jacques Marchais, (1887-1948) an American woman, to serve as a bridge between the West and the rich ancient and cultural traditions of

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

and the Himalayan region. Marchais designed her educational center to be an all-encompassing experience: it was built to resemble a rustic Himalayan

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

with extensive terraced gardens and grounds and a fish and lotus pond. The museum was praised for its authenticity by the Dalai Lama, who visited in 1991. In 2009, the site was listed on the New York State Register and National Register of Historic Places. A writer in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' referred to the museum's founder under the name Jacqueline Klauber, noting that she used Marchais as her professional name. Marchais Museum SI office table jeh

Jacques Marchais Coblentz was born in 1887 in

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. After a career as a child actress in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

she went to

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and married at age 16, had three children, and divorced in 1910. After a brief second marriage, she moved to

, returned to acting, and associated with people who were interested in

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and

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. About 1920 she married the owner of a chemical factory and they lived in the rural Staten Island. There, she began collecting. She opened an art gallery in Manhattan in 1938. In 1945 she opened a

research library A research library is a library which contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects.(Young, 1983; p. 188) A research library will generally include an in-depth selection of materials on a particular topic or set of to ...

next to her home in Staten Island. Marchais had never visited Tibet or the Himalayas, but she had a lifelong interest in the region and sought to find a permanent home for her collection. The museum officially opened in 1947. The museum, its collection and its history in Staten Island has been chronicled in a book by the same name and 60th anniversary exhibition. The museum has not been able to benefit from the Department of Transportation's initiative to draw traffic to the borough's cultural organizations via a new signage program because it lacks a dedicated parking lot and as such it remains somewhat hidden among

's cultural organizations. Bicycling clubs, however, having easier parking, make it a destination.

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* {{authority control Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in New York City Asian art museums in New York (state) Art museums established in 1947 Museums in Staten Island Tibetan-American culture Tibetan art Art museums and galleries in New York City 1947 establishments in New York City National Register of Historic Places in Staten Island

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