Musée d'art et d'archéologie du Périgord

The Musée d'art et d'archéologie du Périgord, commonly abbreviated as MAAP, is a municipal museum located in Périgueux, the capital of the Dordogne department in southwestern France. Founded in 1835, it is the oldest museum in the Dordogne department and holds the designation of Musée de France since 2002. The museum occupies over 2,000 square metres of permanent exhibition space and presents approximately 10 percent of its total holdings, which number between 33,500 and 45,000 works depending on the count. Its collections span archaeology, fine arts, and non-European ethnography, with particular strengths in prehistoric artifacts from the Périgord region, medieval art, and European painting from the 16th to the 20th centuries. The institution was inscribed as a Monument historique in 2020, recognizing its architectural and cultural significance.

The museum's origins trace to 1804, when Count Wlgrin de Taillefer established a first museum in the Jesuit chapel of Périgueux. In 1808, the growing collection moved to the vomitorium of the city's Roman arena and became known as the Vésunien Museum. Following Taillefer's death in February 1833, his will bequeathed his antiquities to Joseph de Mourcin on condition they be deposited in a museum near the tower of Vésone or in Paris. In 1835, on the proposal of the mayor of Périgueux, the collection was transferred to the chapel of the White Penitents, south of the cloister of Saint-Front Cathedral, and renamed the Archaeological Museum of Dordogne in 1836, becoming a departmental institution. Joseph de Mourcin directed it with assistance from Abbé Audierne and Doctor Édouard Galy until his death, after which Galy succeeded him. Galy relocated the museum to its present site, the former Augustinian convent that had served as a prison from 1808 to 1866; archaeological collections were gradually transferred there between 1869 and 1874. Michel Hardy, president of the Historical and Archaeological Society of Périgord, later succeeded Galy. A fine arts section was added in 1857, and in 1859 Mayor Alfred Bardy-Delisle created a municipal museum for painting and sculpture. The decisive moment came in 1891, when the Marquis de Saint-Astier bequeathed over 150 paintings, Flemish, French, and Italian, from the 16th to the 19th century. The city then purchased the old Augustinian convent and surrounding buildings. Gérard de Fayolle became curator of the municipal museum on 27 June 1891, and in 1893 also took charge of the archaeological museum, replacing Michel Hardy. In 1895, the General Council ceded the archaeological collection to the city and contributed financially to a new building. An architectural competition was launched in 1893, and the present museum was constructed from 1895 to 1898 to designs by the Limoges architect Charles Planckaert; the first stone was laid by President Félix Faure. The new building was first fitted out from 1898 to 1903, and inaugurated on 14 July 1903, with Fayolle as curator and Maurice Féaux as his assistant. Over time, the archaeological core expanded with geology, mineralogy, prehistory, and medieval collections from research in Périgord, as well as archaeological pieces from North Africa, Greece, Italy, Oceania, and the Americas, reflecting both local heritage and comparative ethnographic interests.

The museum's collections are organized across three principal domains: archaeology, fine arts, and non-European ethnography. The archaeological holdings rank among the most significant in France, with the prehistory collection rated as the fourth most important nationally and the non-European ethnography collection as the seventh. The collections trace human occupation in the Périgord from more than 400,000 years ago through to contemporary periods. The fine arts section, initiated in 1857, encompasses French, Flemish, Italian, and Spanish works from the 16th to the 21st century, enriched by donations, local acquisitions, state deposits from the Louvre, and purchases from Paris Salon exhibitions. The ethnographic collections, developed partly through donations from colonial officials, represent Africa, Oceania, and other regions, assembled within a framework of comparative study that linked disappearing European crafts such as flint-knitting with analogous practices worldwide. The museum displays roughly one-tenth of its total holdings across more than 2,000 square metres, with the remainder in storage.

The east wing presents major medieval works including the 1280 diptych from Rabastens, a 13th-century Limoges enamel Virgin of Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, and 14th-century stained glass from the now-lost church of Saint-Silan. The prehistoric collections on the first floor feature exceptional specimens: a Neanderthal fossil skeleton from the cave of Le Regourdou at Montignac, approximately 95,000 years old; the Chancelade man, a Homo sapiens fossil skeleton about 12,000 years old; painted and carved blocks from the Blanchard des Roches shelter at Castel-Merle in Sergeac, 35,000 years old; a stone with carved female figures from Termo-Pialat at Saint-Avit-Sénieur; the carved reindeer of Limeuil; and Magdalenian bone carvings including an engraved rib from the Cro-Magnon shelter at Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil and a bison bone pendant from the Raymonden shelter at Chancelade. The fine arts section in the West wing holds French 17th-century works including the Siege of Namur by Jean-Baptiste Martin and two battle scenes by Jacques Courtois; 18th-century landscapes by Hubert Robert and Pierre Patel, The End of a Storm by Adrien Manglard, a Madonna and Child by Charles Antoine Coypel, and works by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Charles-Joseph Natoire, and Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes; 19th-century pieces by Adolphe Appian, Achard, Boguet, Léon Bonnat, William Adolphe Bouguereau, and Paul Guigou; and 20th-century works by Maurice Marinot, Emile Othon Friesz, Jane Poupelet, and Étienne Hajdu. Flemish holdings include The Extraction of the Stone of Folly by Pieter Huys, still lifes by Davidsz de Heem and Jan van Huysum, works by Frans Floris and Abraham Bloemaert, Hooded Falcon by Jan Fyt, King Solomon Worshipping the God Moloch at the Request of His Hundred Women by Frans II Francken, an Allegory of Opportunity attributed to his workshop, and Landscape with Ruins by Bartholomeus Breenbergh. Italian works include Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus by Luca Giordano, paintings by Francesco Cairo, Fish Seller by Giuseppe Recco, Muzio Scevola by Gaspare Diziani, The Wedding at Cana by Sebastiano Ricci, and The Grand Canal by Canaletto. Spanish works include two paintings by Luis de Morales. The museum also holds Capodimonte porcelain, 17th-century Chinese porcelain, Delft faience, and an extensive range of vessels from prehistory to the 20th century, plus regional iron and cast-iron crafts.

The museum is situated at the northern edge of Périgueux's old town, on the Cours Tournay. Its buildings incorporate the former Augustinian convent, which functioned as a prison from 1808 until 1866. The present structure was purpose-built between 1895 and 1898 to designs by Charles Planckaert, architect from Limoges, with the surviving chapel of the convent integrated into the complex. The cloister, a garden space connecting the east and west wings, was conceived for the display of lapidary collections from Gallo-Roman, medieval, and Renaissance periods, including remains of vanished buildings from Périgueux and the Dordogne such as Romanesque sculptures from the destroyed church of San Frontone, dossals, decorations from private buildings, Merovingian and Carolingian sarcophagi, and 13th- and 14th-century rhombus stones. This romantic presentation of ruins reflects the aesthetic of their 18th- and 19th-century discovery. The fine arts wing was renovated in 2002 with a chronological colour scheme: yellow for the 18th-century room, green for the Empire-style early 19th-century room, and progressively lighter grey and blue-grey tones for the 19th- and 20th-century rooms. Each room combines paintings, sculptures, furniture, and art objects of the period. The building was inscribed as a Monument historique on 5 March 2020.

The Musée d'art et d'archéologie du Périgord is a municipal museum owned by the city of Périgueux. It is located in the Périgord region of the Dordogne department in southwestern France. The museum's website is http://www.perigueux-maap.fr/. Visitors enter through an honor hall dedicated to the founders and donors of the institution. The route proceeds through the east wing with its medieval and prehistoric collections, including the nationally significant prehistory displays on the first floor. Rooms 6 and 7 on the ground floor present the African and Oceanian ethnographic collections. The cloister provides access to the lapidary displays, while rooms 11 through 18 in the west wing present the painting and sculpture collections from the 16th to the 21st century. Room 19 hosts temporary exhibitions of contemporary artists, with four to five rotations annually. Another space on the first floor, room 5, is reserved for temporary exhibitions. The museum's organization reflects its historical formation, with the archaeological nucleus complemented by later additions in fine arts and ethnography, maintaining its role as the principal public collection of its kind in the Dordogne.