Eight questions to understand the museum

1. The Musée de Cluny, a castle in the heart of Paris?

A mediaeval monument surrounded by a crenellated wall… With such a description, who wouldn't think of a fortified castle?

And yet, the museum site has never been a castle. At the end of the Middle Ages, it was the Parisian residence of the powerful abbot of Cluny. This religious leader, at the helm of one of the most famous abbeys of the mediaeval world, has an elegant private mansion built between a courtyard and a garden. So it is nothing like the massive castles, which had in any case gone out of style at the end of the 15th century. As for the gargoyles, they are not original; they were only added in the 19th century.

To learn more about the site’s history, visit our "Locations and Collections" pages. They go over the various monuments that make up the Musée de Cluny today, from the ancient Roman baths in Lutetia to the extension inaugurated in 2018, via the Hôtel de Cluny.
 

Original works

Of course, the museum keeps pieces that have sometimes been produced in several copies, such as the printed books of hours or the Châsse (shrine) of Saint Thomas Becket, of which several dozen copies are more or less similar.

However, each one remains an original work. They are not modern copies or reproductions.

That is why visitors to the museum are asked to follow certain rules. Do not touch the works, do not carry bulky items that risk creating any damage, and do not use ink pens in the rooms… Before your visit, you can read the museum visitor regulations.

And if you’re curious to understand what a museum is, the Icom definition will give you all the answers.

4. How do you choose the objects that are added to the museum?

A museum is not meant to display every work or object from a particular period or style.

Unlike the Louvre Museum or the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France), the Musée de Cluny is not the inheritor of the collections of the kings of France. It was established through merging two collections: the archaeological deposit of the city of Paris and the art collection of Alexandre Du Sommerard, which was acquired by the State in 1843. The museum’s collections are therefore the heirs of these two origins.

Therefore, in the 19th century, the collector Alexandre Du Sommerard brought together numerous pieces of decorative art from different eras. Today, those from the mediaeval period are still in the museum. Others were assigned to the château d'Écouen to form the National Museum of the Renaissance or were deposited in other museums.

Since its establishment, the Musée de Cluny has continued to add to its collection through donations, purchases, and so on. However, each new acquisition is the result of a careful selection by the museum's curators.  The acquisition process is therefore an initial selection.
 

Collections that cannot be sold

A piece that is kept in storage is not shown to visitors. But that doesn't mean it will be removed from the museum's collections. This is also prohibited by French law. This is known as the principle of inalienability: an item that has entered a museum's collections cannot be removed from them. It may not be given, sold, or transferred in any way whatsoever, except as a result of a law passed by Parliament or a declassification procedure approved by the Haut Conseil des Musées de France (High Council of Museums of France).

This principle ensures the permanence of public collections by safeguarding them from private interests, as well as from trends and changes in taste and knowledge. Therefore, a forgotten, poorly documented, or inaccurately dated work can, for instance, reveal its full interest during a restoration.

Several works joined our new tour after dust had been removed and they had been restored.

This is the case for several alabaster elements of an English altarpiece (Cl. 2596, 2597, 2600), presented in room 12 or the Saint Germer altarpiece.
 

6. Is the Musée de Cluny the museum of the history of the Middle Ages? 

The Musée de Cluny displays collections that span over 1,000 years of history, from Gallo-Roman antiquity to the dawn of the Renaissance. Some of the exhibited pieces come from archaeological excavations and reflect everyday life. But for the most part, they are works of art.

The museum is therefore primarily defined as an art museum rather than a history museum. The concept of work is important here. As a result, the chronological tour reflects the evolution of forms and styles, although you may take detours to explore certain significant historical events of the period during your visit.

A museum of Parisian monuments?

At its inception, the museum was placed under the authority of the newly established Commission Supérieure des Monuments Historiques (High Commission for Historical Monuments), which was responsible for identifying and classifying monuments considered worthy of historical or artistic interest. When archaeological discoveries were made or during restoration, the museum was naturally chosen to preserve elements from Parisian monuments. This is the case for some of the stained glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, which were considered too fragile to be left in place. The museum emerged as a preservation solution, also for Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, restored by Viollet-le-Duc.

This tradition lasted until the 1970s, when the 28 monumental heads from the Gallery of the Kings of Judah at Notre-Dame Cathedral were added to the collections. Considered lost during the Revolution, these sculptures were discovered by chance during renovation work in a private mansion in the 9th arrondissement of Paris and were donated to the State for display at the museum.