Designed on the model of the Louvre, built between 1855 and 1867, financed in large part by means of a lottery, the Musée d'Amiens - first baptized "Musée Napoléon" then under the Third Republic "Musée de Picardie" - was created by the powerful Société des Antiquaires de Picardie (SAP), itself born in 1836 with the aim of bringing together the archaeological remains of the region in order to save them from destruction and pillage. The SAP gave the museum to the city in 1869 but, even today, it retains the usufruct of a few dedicated rooms: a reception room and a library on Picardy history and heritage rich in 80,000 works.
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It is also to this group of notables, collectors or scholars, that Picardy owes its coat of arms. We admire examples of this other nineteenth invention found under repainted in various spaces of the museum as well as on the ceiling of the main hall of the Society. We also spot the letters SAP carved on the facades. They alternate with the number
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