The Musée de Picardie is the main museum of

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; , or ) is a city and Communes of France, commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme (department), Somme Departments of France, department in the region ...

and

Picardy Picardy (; Picard language, Picard and , , ) is a historical and cultural territory and a former regions of France, administrative region located in northern France. The first mentions of this province date back to the Middle Ages: it gained it ...

, in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It is located at 48, rue de la République, Amiens. Its collections include artifacts ranging from prehistory to the 19th century, and form one of the largest regional museums in France. As an institution, the museum was founded as the ''Musée Napoléon'' in 1802 (the year of the

Treaty of Amiens The Treaty of Amiens (, ) temporarily ended hostilities between France, the Spanish Empire, and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marked the end of the French Revolutionary Wars; after a short peace it set t ...

). However, the current building that houses the museum is more recent, being purpose-built as a regional museum between 1855 and 1867. The

Second Empire style Second Empire style, also known as the Napoleon III style, is a highly Eclecticism in architecture, eclectic style of architecture and decorative arts originating in the Second French Empire. It was characterized by elements of many differe ...

building was designed by architects

Henri Parent Aubert Henri Joseph Parent (; 12 April 1819 – 1895) was a French architect. Biography Aubert Henri Joseph Parent was born on 12 April 1819 in Valenciennes, Nord, Hauts-de-France. His brother, Clément Parent, Clément was the son in-law of Jos ...

and Arthur-Stanislas Diet. It was built thanks to the ''Société des Antiquaires de Picardie'', keen to give the city somewhere to house the collections the society had gathered over decades. A prototype for other French regional museums, it was France's first building constructed exclusively for the purpose of conservation and exhibition of artworks.

Collections

Archaeology

Housed in the basement, archaeological collections include artifacts from: *ancient Greece *ancient Egypt, with around 400 objects (of which 257 are on show), mainly derived from the collection of the painter

Albert Maignan Albert Pierre René Maignan (14 October 1845 – 29 September 1908) was a French history painter and illustrator. Biography In 1864, he left his hometown to study law in Paris, earning his diploma in 1866. During his studies he also paint ...

and from national collections placed here *the archaeology of Picardy The museum is home to the mummified remains of an Egpytian woman named Setjaïmengaou. She died aged around 40 in the 7th century BC. The museum is also home to the

God of Amiens The God of Amiens is a Gallo-Roman bronze statuette found in Amiens, Somme (department), Somme. The statuette, which has been dated to the end of the 1st century CE, is of a male youth sat cross-legged, with the right ear of an animal, perhaps a ...

, a

Gallo-Roman Gallo-Roman culture was a consequence of the Romanization (cultural), Romanization of Gauls under the rule of the Roman Empire in Roman Gaul. It was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, Roman culture, language ...

statuette of a animal-eared Gaulish god.

Medieval

12th to 16th centuries, with the main pieces being the Puys d'Amiens, masterpieces of

Gothic art Gothic art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, and much of Northern Europe, Norther ...

from

Amiens Cathedral The Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens (), or simply Amiens Cathedral, is a Catholic Church, Catholic cathedral. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Amiens. It is situated on a slight ridge overlooking the River Somme in Amiens, the administra ...

Fine arts

French and foreign painters from 17th to 20th centuries, with artists such as: *

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

Jean Siméon Chardin Jean Siméon Chardin (; November 2, 1699 – December 6, 1779) was an 18th-century France, French List of painters, painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre works, genre paintings which depict kitch ...

Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; 16 July 1796 – 22 February 1875), or simply Camille Corot, was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. A pivotal figure in landscape painting, his vast output si ...

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( ; ; ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the ...

Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp Jacob Gerritszoon Cuyp or Cuijp (1594–1652) was a portrait and landscape painter, best known for his portraits. He was born and died in Dordrecht, the son of the stained glass designer Gerrit Gerritsz. Cuyp, who moved to Dordrecht from Ve ...

Philippe de Champaigne Philippe de Champaigne (; 26 May 1602 – 12 August 1674) was a Duchy of Brabant, Brabant-born French people, French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French art, French school. He was a founding member of the Académie royale de pein ...

Jusepe de Ribera Jusepe de Ribera (; baptised 17 February 1591 – 3 November 1652) was a Spanish painter and Printmaking, printmaker. Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artist ...

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific art ...

Luca Giordano Luca Giordano (18 October 1634 – 3 January 1705) was an Italian late-Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain. Early l ...

El Greco Doménikos Theotokópoulos (, ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. ...

Francesco Guardi Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (; 5 October 1712 – 1 January 1793) was an Italian painter, nobleman, and a member of the Venetian School (art), Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the clas ...

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, ; ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens liked to decorate thei ...

Eugène Lepoittevin Eugène Lepoittevin (31 July 1806 – 6 August 1870), also known as Poidevin, Poitevin, and Le Poittevin, was a French artist who achieved an early and lifelong success as a landscape and maritime painter. His work ranged from erotic caricatures t ...

Jacob Jordaens Jacques (Jacob) Jordaens (19 May 1593 – 18 October 1678Jacques Jordaens
in the Netherlands Institute for Ar ...

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typography, typographist closely associated with Dada. When consid ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

Maurice Quentin de La Tour Maurice Quentin de La Tour (; 5 September 1704 – 17 February 1788) was a French painter who worked primarily with pastels in the Rococo style. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV and the Madame de Pompadour. Biogra ...

* Alfred-Georges Regner, painter engraver *

Andrea Schiavone Andrea Meldolla (), also known as Andrea Schiavone or Andrea lo Schiavone, literally "Andrew the Slav", (c. 1510/15–1563) was an Italian Renaissance painter and etcher, born in Dalmatia, in the Republic of Venice (present-day Croatia) to p ...

Hyacinthe Rigaud Jacint Rigau-Ros i Serra (; 18 July 1659 – 29 December 1743), known in French as Hyacinthe Rigaud (), was a Catalan-French baroque painter most famous for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility. Biography Rigau ...

Hubert Robert Hubert Robert (; 22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808) was a French painter in the school of Romanticism, noted especially for his landscape paintings and capricci, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France.Jean de Cayeux ...

Giambattista Tiepolo Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; 5 March 1696 – 27 March 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...

Rogier van der Weyden Rogier van der Weyden (; 1399 or 140018 June 1464), initially known as Roger de le Pasture (), was an Early Netherlandish painting, early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commis ...

Jan van Goyen Jan Josephszoon van Goyen (; 13 January 1596 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch landscape painter. The scope of his landscape subjects was very broad as he painted forest landscapes, marine paintings, river landscapes, beach scenes, winter landscap ...

Alvise Vivarini Alvise or Luigi Vivarini (1442/1453–1503/1505) was an Italian painter, the leading Venetian artist before Giovanni Bellini. Like Bellini, he was part of a dynasty of painters. His father was Antonio Vivarini and his uncle, with whom he may ha ...

Simon Vouet Simon Vouet (; 9 January 1590 – 30 June 1649) was a French painter who studied and rose to prominence in Italy before being summoned by Louis XIII to serve as Premier peintre du Roi in France. He and his studio of artists created religious and ...

Édouard Vuillard Jean-Édouard Vuillard (; 11 November 186821 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist, and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas ...

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (; 14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter known for his mural painting, who came to be known as "the painter for France". He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Ar ...

painted monumental frescoes on the museum's main staircase and first floor galleries, including the two large symbolic frescoes ''Peace and War'' (1861) and ''Work and Rest'' (1863).Source :

Léon Riotor Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

, Puvis de Chavannes, Librairie Larousse (1914) An 1822 painting by

Jérôme-Martin Langlois Jerome-Martin Langlois (11 March 1779 – 28 December 1838) was a French Neoclassical style painter. He was trained by painter Jacques-Louis David and he was a Knight of the Legion of Honour. Early life He was born in Paris on 11 March 1779. Hi ...

, '' Diana and Endymion'', was displayed at the museum from 1878. It was believed to have destroyed in bombing in 1918 during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and was part of the Musée de Picardie's collection that had been evacuated to 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 ...

for safekeeping. The painting was missing from the works that were returned to Amiens from the Louvre after the end of the war. It was initially described as "untraceable since the return of the 1918 removed works" and subsequently as "destroyed by the falling of a bomb on the museum". It may be in the private collection of the American performer

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

Musée de l'Hôtel de Berny

Located near

, the Hôtel de Berny is an annexe of the Musée de Picardie.

Notes and references

Bibliography

* Matthieu Pinette, ''Couleurs d'Italie, couleurs du Nord - Peintures étrangères des musées d'Amiens'', édition Somogy, Paris, 2001.

External links

* {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in France Archaeological museums in France Buildings and structures in Amiens Musee de Picardie Egyptological collections in France Local museums in France Musee de Picardie 1802 establishments in France Museums established in 1802