The ''musée mexicain'', later ''musée américain'' (Mexican Museum / American Museum), was a section of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

that was dedicated to

pre-Columbian art Pre-Columbian art refers to the Visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Americas, visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North America, North, Central America, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European con ...

, with an initial emphasis on Mexican archaeology. It opened in 1850, and closed in 1887 when its collections were transferred to the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro.

History

In the early 19th century, the archaeology of

pre-Columbian Mexico The pre-Columbian (or prehispanic) history of the territory now making up the country of Mexico is known through the work of archaeologists and epigraphers, and through the accounts of Spanish conquistadores, settlers and clergymen as well as ...

emerged gradually alongside the more longstanding and prominent disciplines of classical archaeology,

egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Ancient Greek, Greek , ''wiktionary:-logia, -logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian History of Egypt, history, Egyptian language, language, Ancient Egypt ...

, and

assyriology Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia''), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies, is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cuneiform writing. The fie ...

. The publication in Paris of

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, natural history, naturalist, List of explorers, explorer, and proponent of Romanticism, Romantic philosophy and Romanticism ...

's ''Vues des cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l'Amerique'' in 1810 had a seminal impact, and was followed by other influential works by Carlos María de Bustamante, , Edward King, Viscount Kingsborough, and Henri Ternaux-Compans. The ''musée mexicain'' was the brainchild of Louvre antiquities curator Adrien Prévost de Longpérier. His first 1850 catalogue of 657 conserved artefacts, titled ''"Notice des Monuments exposés dans la salle des Antiquités américaines (Mexique, Pérou, Chili, Haïti, Antilles) au Musée du Louvre"'' has been described as "the first America-focused uropeanmuseum monography" and "one of the first truly scientific compendiums in the field". In 1851, the section was renamed ''musée américain'' to account for the diversity of geographical origins of its collections. Its location, initially in a ground-floor room near the center of the North Wing of the

Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (, Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a French Renaissance archi ...

, was changed several times during its relatively brief existence. Upon its opening it became a highly popular section of the

. Following the removal of its collections from the Louvre in 1887, however, the memory of Longpérier's pioneering pre-Columbian art display gradually faded away to a point of near-oblivion.

Notes

{{France-art-display-stub Louvre Pre-Columbian art museums Art museums and galleries established in 1850 Defunct museums in Paris 1850 establishments in France 1880s disestablishments in France 1887 disestablishments in Europe

History

See also

Notes