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What to see in Avignon this summer ?

Christian Lacroix stages the Avignon museums: Mirabilis or Merveilleux – Miracle in Latin, is the summer exhibition of the Palais des Papes set by the famous fashion designer from Saturday, June 30 to Sunday, January 13, 2019.

This exhibition highlights some of the secret collections of municipal museums in the spectacular setting of the Grand Chapel of the Palais des Papes and returns to the tradition of cabinets of curiosities dear to the Age of Enlightenment that resonates in the baroque world of Christian Lacroix. This central theme allows him to “invent” a universe of curiosities featuring the collections proposed by the Conservatives.
Mirabilis proposes, through an unprecedented heritage grouping, a collection of 350 to 400 works, documents or collections, most of which have been lent by the Calvet Foundation. The visitor discovers the world of a heritage that, from prehistory to modern art, through ethnic collections, transports from surprise to surprise.

Avignon’s museums – Calvet, Lapidaire, Requien, Petit Palais and Palais du Roure – offer a rare and even encyclopedic diversity of collections that cover both the human and natural sciences, archeology, the fine arts and the arts decorative, painting or sculpture of all times. The outlines of these borderless collections also include unexpected ensembles from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Oceania-China, Cambodia, Turkey, Syria, India, Easter Island. The Avignon collections are estimated at more than one million two hundred thousand works of art, objects and documents, of which only ten percent are accessible to the public.

The scenography is organized in a central and solar way around a Period Room entitled the Cabinet of the Spirits in tribute to outstanding figures of the history of Avignon museums: Esprit Calvet (1728-1810), Esprit Requien (1758-1851) and Jeanne de Flandreysy (1874-1959).

It is a question of revealing, in a new light, the history of the collections of Avignon while raising the curiosity of the visitors invited to [re] discover the museums of Avignon. The installation of the Palace of the Popes, designed as the starting point of a route, leads the public from one museum to another. At each stage, he discovers a set of works belonging and introducing to the visit of the following museum.

– Palace of the Popes, open every day: June 9h-19h; July 9h-20h; August 9h-20h30; from 1/09 to 1/11 from 9am to 7pm; from 2/11 to 15/01 9h30-17h45. Closing crates 1h before.

– Petit Palais and Calvet museums, open every day except Tuesdays: 10h-13h / 14h-18h, closing 25/12 and 1st / 01.

– Lapidaire museum, open every day except Mondays: 10h-13h / 14h-18h, closing 25/12 and 1st / 01.

– Musée Requien and Palais du Roure, open from Tuesday to Saturday: 10h-13h / 14h-18h, closed 25/12 and 1st / 01.
Theme (s): Painting, Sculpture, Drawing
Dates and times

From 30/06/2018 to 13/01/2019, every day.
Opening of the Palace of Popes:
– June: 9h-19h
– July: 9h-20h.
– August: 9:00 to 20:30
– from 01/09 to 01/11 from 09:00 to 19:00.
– from 2/11 to 15/01: 09:30 to 17:45