Mougins Museum of Classical Art

The Mougins Museum of Classical Art (MACM, Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins) was a private museum located in the medieval village of Mougins in the Alpes-Maritimes department of southeastern France. Inaugurated on 10 June 2011 by British collector and investment manager Christian Levett, the museum occupied a refurbished medieval building in the heart of the village and operated for twelve years before closing in August 2023. Its distinctive curatorial concept, juxtaposing ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities with modern and contemporary art, earned international recognition including Apollo magazine's 'New Museum of the Year' award in 2011. The museum welcomed approximately a quarter of a million visitors during its existence, a remarkable figure for a village of roughly 19,000 inhabitants. In June 2024, the space reopened as the Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (FAMM), Europe's first major museum dedicated solely to women artists, marking a radical transformation in both collection focus and institutional mission.

Christian Levett, a British investment manager and lifelong collector, conceived the museum in 2008 with the aim of making his personal collection available to the public. After three years of renovation and preparation, the MACM opened in June 2011 under the directorship of Leisa Paoli, with Mark Merrony serving as a key curatorial advisor. Levett's collecting had begun in childhood with coins, and by the time of the museum's founding he had assembled approximately 1,000 objects spanning five millennia of civilization. The museum actively lent objects to institutions worldwide and hosted temporary exhibitions by contemporary artists including Sean Scully (2013), Gary Komarin (2014), Alexander Mihaylovich (2015), and Léo Caillard (2018). In October 2019, Levett consigned for sale at Christie's a marble statue of Emperor Hadrian from his collection, known as the Cobham Hall Hadrian, to benefit the museum. By 2023, Levett's collecting interests had shifted decisively toward post-war and contemporary work by female artists. He closed the MACM in August 2023 and, following six auctions at Christie's in London and New York that dispersed much of the classical collection, reopened the space as FAMM in June 2024. Levett's philanthropic activities extended beyond the museum to sponsorships at the British Museum, Royal Academy, National Gallery, and Ashmolean Museum, as well as archaeological funding in the UK, Spain, Italy, and Egypt.

The MACM's collection was organized across four floors and comprised over 700 works, though some sources cite approximately 800 or even 1,000 objects at various points in its history. The core holdings consisted of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities, including sculpture, vases, coins, jewelry, and funerary objects. The Egyptian Gallery in the crypt focused on afterlife themes with funerary masks, sarcophagi, and tomb artifacts ranging from the Old Kingdom through the Ptolemaic period. The ground-floor People and Personalities Gallery presented busts and statues of historical figures from ancient Greece and Rome. The first-floor Gods and Goddesses Gallery displayed Greek and Roman bronzes, marble statuary, pottery, glass, silverware, coins, and antique jewelry. The second-floor Armoury housed what was described as the world's largest private collection of ancient Greek and Roman arms and armour, including helmets, shields, and body protection from Etruscan, Corinthian, Greek, and Roman eras. What distinguished the MACM was its deliberate integration of these antiquities with more than 100 modern and contemporary works, creating dialogues across millennia rather than segregating periods. The museum produced several publications including 'Mougins Museum of Classical Art' (2011, edited by M. Merrony), 'La Collection Famille Levett' (2012), 'Animals in the Ancient World' (2014) by C. Dauphin, and 'Pompeii in Pictures' (2015) by K. Schörle.

The MACM's signature works included ancient pieces displayed in provocative juxtaposition with modern and contemporary art. Notable ancient holdings included a Roman marble portrait head of Emperor Augustus from the early 1st century AD, unearthed in France in the 1880s; a monumental marble portrait bust of Emperor Lucius Verus from the late 2nd century AD; and the Cobham Hall Hadrian, a marble statue of the emperor consigned to Christie's in 2019. The armour collection featured exceptional pieces such as the Guttmann Mouse helmet, believed to date from the late 2nd century, which depicted two mice climbing toward round loaves of bread and had been on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for five years. Modern and contemporary works included pieces by Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Paul Cézanne, Auguste Rodin, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Marc Quinn, Antony Gormley, and Damien Hirst. One iconic display paired depictions of Aphrodite by Warhol, Dalí, and Yves Klein with 1st and 2nd century AD marble and bronze representations of the goddess. Hirst's 'The Severed Head of Medusa' (2013), executed in gold and silver, was acquired during the artist's 2017 Venice exhibition and later sold at Christie's. The museum also held works by artists associated with Mougins itself, including Francis Picabia, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso, who spent his final twelve years in the village.

The museum occupied a medieval building at 32 Rue du Commandeur in the historic hilltop village of Mougins, located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region near Cannes and approximately 30 minutes from Nice airport. The structure had served multiple purposes over its long history: originally the village prison in medieval times, it later became a mill before conversion to a private residence in the 1950s. For the museum, Levett undertook extensive interior renovation while preserving the original façade in its historic style. The building provided over 400 square meters of display space across four levels, from a subterranean crypt to the second-floor armoury. The interior incorporated original medieval elements including stone floors, while modern additions such as a glass elevator facilitated visitor circulation. The site was deliberately chosen for its location in an area with deep artistic associations, Picasso having spent his final years nearby, and with proximity to ancient Graeco-Roman settlements including Antipolis (modern Antibes) and Nikaia (modern Nice). The surrounding region's archaeological significance included evidence that the hill on which Mougins sits had been an important Roman hill-fort.