Musée Cernuschi

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Azar Samanov

Level 30 Local Expert

The museum was founded in 1898 by financier and collector Henri Chernusky This museum is considered the second most important Oriental art museum in France after the Guimet Museum. He holds a collection of 12,500 objects representing the fifth largest collection of Chinese art in Europe. Henri Cernuski, an Italian by birth, was a revolutionary who participated in the anti-Austrian uprising in Milan in 1848, after the failure of which he fled to Paris, where he made a fortune in banking. Disillusioned with politics, he traveled to the East, visiting China, Japan, Korea and other countries, from where he brought back more than 5,000 unique art objects, including bronze, ceramics, funeral figurines and painted silks. The central exhibit of the museum is a bronze statue of Buddha from Japan's Meguro district, acquired by Chernuski in 1871 for 500 gold coins. This 4.5–meter-high statue, created in the 18th century, is considered one of the largest Japanese bronze statues outside Japan. The museum's collection covers the period from the Neolithic (8000 BC) to the 20th century and includes unique artifacts such as bronze products from the Archaic period (XV century BC — III century AD), art objects from the Han era, funerary statues of the Wei and Sui dynasties, ceramics from the Tang and Song eras, as well as rare jewelry from the Liao era . The museum building, designed by architect William Bowens van der Boyen in the neoclassical style, was built as a private residence by Chernuski and later donated by him to Paris along with the accumulated collection. The atmosphere of the museum, filled with ancient artifacts, creates a sense of mystery and immersion in the past. I also liked the modern ceramic pieces, which are unusual and original.

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Musée Cernuschi

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