Ulysse et Nausicaa chapiteau de "La dispute" (quartier de saint Hilaire à Poitiers), début du XIe s. verrerie d'origine italienne provenant d'Antran (Vienne) - 1er s. ap. J.-C.

Built in 1974, the museum displays collections of art and archeology. The archaeological section presents the rich heritage of regional prehistory to the Middle Ages with a set of Gallo-Roman town called then Lemonum. The collections of painting and sculpture department of Fine Arts range from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. Note that the museum has the second public collection in France of the work of Camille Claudel.

Hours open to the public:

From October 1st to May 31st:
Wednesday to Friday: 10h-12h / 13h15-17h
Saturday and Sunday: 14h-18h
Day continues on Tuesdays from 10h to 17h.

From June 1 to September 30:
Tuesday to Friday: 10h-12h / 13h15-18h
Saturday and Sunday 10h-12h / 14h-18h
Night (June, July and August), Tuesday until 20h.

Museum closed on public holidays, except on November 11, Ascension Thursday, July 14 and August 15.

Activities:

COLLECTIONS

Archaeology

A section of regional archeology traces, in the basement, the history of Poitou from Prehistory to the Middle Ages.

Remarkable for the Paleolithic, the strange engravings in the cave Walk occupy a special place in Magdalenian art.The Neolithic is amply illustrated by the rich collection of furniture   Paw: ceramics, flint, bone tools, ornaments from the sites of St. Martin-la-Riviere, Bellefonds Flower Puyraveau. Camp Allaric (excavations Pautreau) is exceptional levels delivered in particular have protohistoric pottery decorated with painted and incised (geometric figures, anthropomorphic). Deposits of the Bronze Age (Notre-Dame d'Or, Le Verger-Gazeau Vénat) and funerary furniture of the early Iron Age (tomb of Mia) are also exposed in this section.

Apart from remains of houses preserved in situ, the works of sculpture discovered in the ancient city and its surroundings remind the visitor of romanization Lemonum, capital of Pictons. Lifestyles, religions andbeliefs, funeral rites are evoked through the objects of everyday life but also the statuary in which stands a statue of Athena, Italian copy of the first century AD a Greek original. Among these collections, glassware deserves special attention. From Late Antiquity witnessed by the oldest remains of stucco decoration found in Christian Gaul, sarcophagi history, ornaments, epitaphs, evoking the birth of Christian art in Poitou.
On the ground floor, mud-reliquary of the Abbey of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe (blue glass exceptional, unique in Europe) introduced the visitor to the Middle Ages. The medieval carvings, which are mainly buildings disappeared, show that Poitou was a big focus of Romanesque art, including the marquee of the "Dispute" is the most beautiful masterpiece.

Fine Arts

The four-level museum tour follows a chronological sequence. The elements of a Venetian altarpiece (c. 1350) opening sequence of old paintings. The fragments of the castle Bonnivet (sixteenth century) and the marble statue of Louis XIII (1635) illustrate the best sculpture in Poitou. The works of the Nordic school of the Golden Age, including a series of portraits Dutch are a varied set that reinforces the remarkable series of "Mysteries of the Life of Christ" from the abbey of St. Croix. The large format French and Italian (Giovanni Lanfranco, Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre) of the seventeenth and eighteenth century in the tradition of history painting represented at the turn of the nineteenth century by the New Classicism (around Jacques- Pajou Augustine, Jean Broc, and especially Louis Gauffier).

The works of the nineteenth century mark a path radically transformed. One room is devoted to the art of the Salon:society portraits, landscapes, historical scenes, genre scenes and Orientalist works are hung on red chair rails recalling the atmosphere of the salons of the time.

Two other rooms evoke the Ingres around a painting by Jean-Dominique Ingres, and the official painters of Poitou leading career in the capital. Symbolism punctuates the section of the nineteenth century, around the works of Gustave Moreau, Eugene Carriere, Odilon Redon, Auguste Rodin, and an exceptional group of sculptures by Camille Claudel.

The ^twentieth century opened with a rare painting by Piet Mondrian youth and small sizes of Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. Works by women artists around Romaine Brooks and Sarah Lipska, compose an original section, with leading figures of avant-garde - Albert Marquet, Aristide Maillol, Jean Fautrier - as lesser-known painters and sculptors - Henri Doucet, Pierre Ducos La Haille Louis Billotey, Jean-René Carrière, Marcel Merignargues.

Poitiers in the art and history

This section provides an evocation of the history of Poitiers. The building blocks are the site of Poitiers by Admiral de Coligny in 1569 by Francis Nautré painted in 1619, the spectacular sculpture Grand'Goule dragon wooden polychrome Gargot commissioned in 1677 to John and the remarkable series of Dutch paintings given Flandrine to Nassau, Abbess of Holy Cross from 1604 to 1640 and entered the museum's collections in 1964.


Guided tours, lectures, concerts, readings are offered.
Temporary exhibitions
Educational entertainment (games, workshops)