After three years of restoration, the Cernuschi Museum makes new skin
and
re-open for the public in June 2005. Second museum devoted to
Arts of the Far East after the famous Museum Guimet, this temple of
Chinese art is housed in a sumptuous private mansion of the Monceau
plain having belonged to the collector Henri Cernuschi (1821-1896) at
the XIXth century. This Italian business man, refugee in France
under the Second Empire, had been traveling during two years in China
and in Japan between 1871 and 1873. This cultural tour will
enable him to pile up 4000 works of art, the beginning of an exemplary
collection. In 1896, the town of Paris inherits its superb
fortune. It will continue to grow up regularly until today. However,
the presentation of 1962 started to date. Inaccessible to the
handicapped people, badly clarified, confined, such was the old
museum. For now, the 12400 collector's items (ceramic, bronzes,
paintings, prints) have more space to radiate, therefore to allure the
visitor. Masterpiece of the places, monumental Buddha Amida,
bronze of the XVIIIth century suggest the spiritual atmosphere of an
authentic temple of Tokyo. In 1930, arrives here a superb terra
cotta polychrome camel driver of the dynasty of Wei of North
(386-534). Funerary ornaments of gilded metal Mongolia are
exhibited beside Japanese photographs and an ancient ceramics mud of
the province of Sichuan. In this wealthy residence, only the
smoking-room preserved the neo-classic atmosphere of the time of the
host. Like all the Museums of the Town of Paris, this one is
completely free.
