Musée national Adrien-Dubouché is a French national museum dedicated to

Limoges porcelain Limoges porcelain is hard-paste porcelain produced by factories in and around the city of Limoges, France, beginning in the late 18th century, by any manufacturer. By about 1830, Limoges, which was close to the areas where suitable clay was found, ...

and the history of

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

s. Founded in 1845 and located in

Limoges Limoges ( , , ; , locally ) is a city and Communes of France, commune, and the prefecture of the Haute-Vienne Departments of France, department in west-central France. It was the administrative capital of the former Limousin region. Situated o ...

(

Haute-Vienne Haute-Vienne (; , ; Upper Vienne) is a département in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwest-central France. Named after the Vienne River, it is one of the twelve départements that together constitute Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The prefecture an ...

), it is part of the Cité de la céramique - Sèvres et Limoges public establishment.

History

Founded in 1845 by Tiburce Morisot, prefect of the

and father of the painter

Berthe Morisot Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (; 14 January 1841 – 2 March 1895) was a French painter, printmaker and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the ...

, the first Limoges museum was initially housed in the prefecture's premises on Place du Présidial, and its purpose was to build up a collection: paintings, sculptures and objets d'art were collected by members of the Société archéologique et historique du Limousin. Adrien Dubouché, the son of a cloth merchant, took on the voluntary management of the institution in 1865 and began a series of

donation A donation is a gift for Charity (practice), charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, Service (economics), services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donati ...

s to add to the collections; bequests were received from French and foreign ceramics manufacturers. The city of Limoges made available a disused hospice for the insane on the Place du Champ-de-Foire: the building was converted to display the collections and house the School of Decorative Arts, founded on the initiative of Adrien Dubouché. In 1875, on the death of his friend Albert Jacquemart, author of the book ''Les Merveilles de la céramique'', Adrien Dubouché acquired his ceramic collection, comprising 587 pieces, which he donated to the city of Limoges. In recognition of this gift, and even though Adrien Dubouché was still alive, the mayor of Limoges named the museum after him. On the eve of Dubouché's death in 1881, the museum and school were nationalised. Since then, the museum has been known as the Musée National Adrien-Dubouché. The director of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, Auguste Louvrier de Lajolais, was entrusted with the management of both establishments. Parisian architect Pierre-Henri Mayeux was commissioned to build the school and museum. He designed two adjoining buildings, which were inaugurated in 1900. Jewish artist

Charles Edmond Kayser Charles Edmond Kayser (1882 – 1965) was a French visual artist, teacher, arts administrator, and curator. His work was known for themes of urban landscapes, seascapes, and landscapes. Kayser taught at Académie Scandinave in Paris for many y ...

served as curator of the museum from 1938 to 1941, after which he was dismissed from his role due to

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

. In the 1990s, the National School of Decorative Arts in Limoges moved to the university campus. In 2003, the Ministry of Culture and Communication launched an international competition to renovate the museum, which was won by Viennese architect

Boris Podrecca Boris Podrecca (born 30 January 1940 in Belgrade) is a Slovene-Italian architect and urban designer living in Vienna, Austria. Podrecca is considered by some critics a pioneer of postmodernism. He took a new, more tolerant attitude towards histo ...

and museographer Zette Cazalas. The museum was inaugurated on 28 June 2012.

Collection

The Musée National Adrien Dubouché houses almost 18,000 works in

s (

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

stoneware Stoneware is a broad class of pottery fired at a relatively high temperature, to be impervious to water. A modern definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire ...

earthenware Earthenware is glazed or unglazed Vitrification#Ceramics, nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids ...

and

porcelain Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating Industrial mineral, raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to oth ...

) and glass from various periods, from Antiquity to the present day, and from a wide range of civilisations: ceramics from

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Chinese porcelain Chinese ceramics are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese ...

, Islamic earthenware, stoneware pieces and European porcelain from the 17th century to the present day. The museum also has a glass collection. The glass-making centres of

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

Nevers Nevers ( , ; , later ''Nevirnum'' and ''Nebirnum'') is a city and the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Nièvre Departments of France, department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regions of France, region in central France. It was the pr ...

and

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

are all represented. The museum also houses a public collection of

Gallery

File:Visiter visuel2.jpg, Reception hall File:Découvrir visuel1.jpg, Technical mezzanine File:Accueil visuel3.jpg, Ceramics from Antiquity to the 18th century. File:Lumière sur visuel3.jpg, Ceramics from the 19th century to the present day. File:Informations pratiques visuel2.jpg, The rooms devoted to Limoges porcelain File:Installation de Zhuo Qi au Musée National Adrien Dubouché, Limoges.jpg, Installation by artist Zhuo Qi, 2016 File:Médaillon en porcelaine tendre Manufacture royale de Sèvres 1789.jpg, Médaillon "Ne suis-je pas un homme, un frère ?", porcelaine tendre, Manufacture royale de Sèvres, 1789. File:Vase en grès 1878 Manufacture Doulton&Cie.jpg, Vase, stoneware, Manufacture Doulton et compagnie, 1878 File:Médaillon en porcelaine dure Limoges 1771.jpg, Medallion First Limousin earthenware, hard porcelain biscuit, Limoges, 1771. File:Service Cérès en biscuit de porcelaine dure Limoges Manufacture Pouyat 1855.jpg, Especially the Cérès riche service, hard porcelain, Limoges, Pouyat factory, 1855. File:Coupe à la libellule Limoges Manufacture Pouyat.jpg, Dragonfly bowl, hard porcelain and translucent enamels, Limoges, Pouyat factory, between 1902 and 1906. File:Lampe de mosquée Manufacture Joseph Brocard 1880.jpg, Mosque lamp, enamelled glass, Joseph Brocard factory, Paris, 1880. File:Exposition temporaire site internet visuel2 2.jpg, Baizi" dish, Jingdhezen kilns (China), hard porcelain, mid-14th century (

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

). File:Faïence et lustre métallique XVIe siècle Deruta (Italie).jpg, Woman with a viol dish, earthenware and metal lustre, Deruta (Italy), 16th century (on loan from 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 ...

)

History

Collection

Gallery

References

External links