Description of the attraction
The Carnavale Museum owes its existence to the man who destroyed medieval Paris - the reformer of the city, Baron Haussmann. The prefect, demolishing old houses that interfered with the laying of highways, understood that whole epochs were leaving with them. In 1886, on his initiative, the city bought an old Carnavalet mansion in the Marais quarter to house a historical library and a collection of objects from disappearing times.
This building was erected in 1548-1560 by the architect Pierre Lescaut. In 1578, the building was bought by the rich Breton widow Françoise de Kernevenois - her surname, distorted by the Parisians, became the name of the house. From 1677 to 1696, an intelligent and observant Marquise de Sevigne lived here, in her letters to her daughter who described in detail the life of the court during the time of Louis XIV. The street where the museum is located is named after her.
The Carnavale Museum is now the oldest city museum in the capital. Here are collected art canvases, furniture, clocks, mirrors, engravings, fans - everything that can tell about the evolution of urban life. Many exhibits were donated to the museum by famous private collectors - for example, the Dutuis brothers gave him their antique collection in 1902, Maurice Girardin in 1953 - a collection of modern art. There is also a gallery of Madame de Sevigne in the museum - there you can see a lacquered Chinese table, at which the Marquise wrote her letters. The building is decorated with bas-reliefs by the same Pierre Lescaut. The museum is adjoined by gardens in which Goujon's sculptures are exhibited.
In 1989, the museum expanded: the neighboring mansion le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau joined the Carnival. It has found a place for a collection illustrating Parisian life - from the French Revolution to the present day. Here, for example, an entire Art Deco ballroom is exhibited, which was decorated in 1925 by the Spanish painter Jose Maria Sert. Now in the Carnival there are more than a hundred halls with exhibits belonging to the eras from Gallo-Roman to modern.
In 2000, the Archaeological Museum of Notre Dame Cathedral was added to the Carnavale Museum.
