Universal Objects and Universal Museums
The Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
In January and February of 1878, prior to the opening of the Universal Exhibition, a first ethnographical display opened in the Trocadéro. This was a short-lived event, and soon the objects were moved to other museums across Paris: particularly, a series of ethnographical mannequins showing different peoples with their traditional weapons were moved to the Musée de l'Armée, near the Invalides. After the closure of the Universal Exhibition, which had included the Retrospective of French and foreign arts in the Trocadéro, a small display of ethnographical objects returned there and slowly led to the constitution of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro.
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This museum officially opened in 1882, under the direction of Ernest-Théodore Hamy. It soon expanded thanks to donations and new acquisitions made during fieldwork expeditions. At the same time, its collections expanded thanks to objects being acquired, or donated to it, during the successive French Universal Exhibitions.
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The museum was to close in 1937, when its collections would become part of the newly established Musée de l'Homme (which opened in 1938).
Objects...
travelling across museums
Click on the image to discover more about this artefact!
Objects...
from Universal Exhibitions to the museum
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at the birth of the museum
Alphonse Pinart contributed to displays during the 1878 Universal Exhibition and, immediately afterwards, donated some of the Americas objects for the creation of an ethnographic museum.
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which arrived at the museum later
Hamy published the collections of the museum widely and shared the new acquisitions in a range of texts, including the Revue d'Ethnographie.
