After eighteen months of work, the Musée des Jacobins in Auch, renamed the Musée des Amériques in 2019, reopens its doors to the public. Its museum tour has been redesigned, its exhibition areas enlarged and around a hundred new pieces are presented to the public. The works exhibited are also the subject of a beautiful book entirely dedicated to the museum's collections.
The new showcase for the pre-Columbian collection of Auch
Created during the Revolution in 1793, the museum presents, in addition to these archaeological, ethnographic and artistic collections from the South-West, an exceptional collection of pre-Columbian art. The arrival of the first pre-Columbian objects at the museum is linked to the appointment, in 1911, of the curator Guillaume Pujos (1852-1921). This traveling Auscitain, passionate about art and archaeology, integrated into the museum's collections his personal collection consisting of a hundred objects, all brought back from Latin America in 1896 and 1906.
The non-European collection was then enriched by deposits, donations and purchases, including the acquisition in 1986 of the Mass of Saint Gregory , which alone constitutes the third founding act in the history of Auch's American collections. It is a feather painting made in 1539 in Mexico City and probably one of the last productions of the Aztec feather masters Amantecas . A work like no other, recently exhibited alongside other astonishing Mexican feather paintings at the Quai Branly in Paris, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum in New York . Over the last ten years, several major donations have considerably enriched the museum's historical collection: featherwork, textiles, finery and ceremonial objects in gold, silver and gilded copper open the doors of major national and international exhibitions to the Auscitaine collection.
This rich and varied collection now makes the Museum of the Americas the largest collection of pre-Columbian art in France, along with that of the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. From a few hundred inventory numbers, the museum has grown to over 40,000 items. It is not surprising that the establishment is now the first museum in France to obtain the label "National Reference Center" specializing in pre-Columbian art and Latin American sacred art . This label should allow it to showcase, through exchanges, loans or deposits, the 32,000 pre-Columbian objects listed in the 170 museums scattered throughout France, and whose collections are unexploited.
Permanent collection, temporary exhibitions, bookstore-boutique, the Museum of the Americas is set to become one of the new major cultural sites in Occitania.
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From April to September, open every day from 10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. From October to March, open every day from 10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
My favorite pieces
The Museum of the Americas Catalog
A beautiful book and scientific work, the catalogue " Musée des Amériques. Auch Collections" offers the uninitiated reader, as well as the connoisseur, the chance to discover the collections of the Musée des Amériques based on the most beautiful objects selected from the funds of the Auch museum.
The catalog is divided into 5 sections that explore the areas covered by the museum's collections - America, Paleontology-Antiquity, Medieval, Fine Arts and Gascony. A new reference work that allows everyone to acquire the essential notions to understand the history of cultures and works as well as the context and function of the objects that make up the collections of the Museum of the Americas.
Where to buy the catalog?
At the Museum of the Americas shop of course or online: here
Release: 03/10/2019
Publisher: Snoeck Gent
Number of pages: 320
Language: FRENCH
ISBN: 9789461612724
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