Musée Guimet

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Museum

Overview

The outstanding Musée Guimet boasts the western world’s biggest collection of Asian art, thanks to the 19th-century wanderings of Lyonnaise industrialist Émile Guimet. Exhibits, enriched by the state’s vast holdings, are laid out geographically in airy, light-filled rooms. Just past the entry, you can find the largest assemblage of Khmer sculpture outside Cambodia. The second floor has statuary and masks from Nepal, ritual funerary art from Tibet, and jewelry and fabrics from India. Peek into the library rotunda, where Monsieur Guimet once entertained the city’s notables under the gaze of eight caryatids atop Ionic columns; Mata Hari danced here in 1905. The much-heralded Chinese collection, made up of 20,000-odd objects, covers seven millennia, while the impressive Buddhist Pantheon features scores of Budhhas from China and Japan. Grab a free English-language audioguide and brochure at the entrance. If you need a pick-me-up, stop at the Salon des Porcelaines café on the lower level for a ginger milk shake. And don’t miss the Guimet’s adjunct space just up the street at 19 avenue d’Iéna. The Hôtel d’Heidelbach contains a Japanese garden and the museum’s collection of Asian furniture; admission is free with a Musée Guimet ticket.