The French did not wait for Bonaparte's expedition, the discovery of Champollion or the obelisk of Concorde to become passionate about Egypt.
Like the Louvre, the museums in the regions are full of objects from the banks of the Nile acquired or bequeathed sometimes very long ago.
Take those of the Granet Museum in Aix-en-Provence that its director, Bruno Ely, with the help of Christophe Barbotin, general curator of heritage at the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre, all brought out from the reserves where they had slept for a long time. quarter of century.
That is to say 153 very disparate pieces since the oldest - elements of stoneware and painted terracotta - date back to the fourth and third millennia before our era while the most recent date from the Copto-Byzantine period.
Horus falcon on his shield, Late period, bronze.
© 2019 Granet Museum / Hervé Lewandowski
The first amateur to have had a large number of them lived under Louis XV.
This Jules-François-Paul Fauri from Saint-Vincens, a patrician from Aix, had notably received as a dowry a share of the fabulous cabinet of curiosities
This article is for subscribers only.
You have 78% left to discover.
Subscribe: 1 € the first month
Can be canceled at any time
Enter your email
Already subscribed?
Log in