After three years of work, the Museum of Precious Arts reopens its doors to the public in Toulouse
It is located in a beautiful mansion in a small street in the Carmes district of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) and was previously called the Museum of Decorative Arts and Graphic Arts. After three years of work, this municipal establishment, now renamed the Museum of Precious Arts Paul-Dupuy, reopened its doors to the public on November 16, revealing new spaces and a completely redesigned visit route. Originally private, this museum became municipal in 1949 after the legs of art lover Paul Dupuy.
“There hadn’t been any work done here since 1985, the scenography was used, the visit route barely visible, many works were in storage due to a lack of space, while the diversity of the pieces and the abundance of the collections, particularly that of the clocks, are remarkable, underlines Francis Saint-Genez, director-curator of the Paul-Dupuy museum. The cabinet of curiosities model is used to present the collections by theme. Beyond the objects it keeps, the museum is also a place of conservation of ancient know-how”.
“A place of conservation of ancient know-how”
Because you can find everything in this strange museum which presents silver forks, keys and locks, clocks, old chests or even the first devices prefiguring the cinema. To fully discover these collections of works of art, visitors walk through several rooms. The decorative arts and works of art, which represent nearly 13,000 objects in the museum, have been grouped together in the time cabinet, for watchmaking, and part of the preciousness cabinet.
The antique clocks are the flagship of the establishment, by the rarity of its pieces, their number and their exceptional state of preservation. Prestige watches, clocks, sundials and chronometers tell the story of time measurement from the Renaissance to the 20th century.
The Paul-Dupuy museum is also the museum of graphic arts, with 36,000 works ranging from prints to advertising posters, including postcards and drawings. In another room, there are sabers that can be admired in a display case, alongside processional crosses and religious sculptures. Thanks to the renovation of the museum, certain objects can finally be exhibited to the general public, such as the optical processes of the beginnings of the animated image and in relief, gathered in the basement. The Paul-Dupuy Museum of Precious Arts has nearly 150,000 works in its collections.