Haguenau Historical Museum, Haguenau, France

The Musée historique is one of the three museums of Haguenau, France. It was established in 1900 and inaugurated in 1905, when Haguenau was a German town and part of Alsace-Lorraine. In spite of its name, it is as much an art museum as a museum dedicated to History.

The museum was founded by the mayor, Xavier Nessel, who was also a keen amateur archaeologist. The building was initially designed to house the municipal collections, the municipal archive and the municipal library.

Apart from artefacts relating to the history of the town, including its Jewish community, the museum owns a rich collection of archaeological finds from the Neolithic, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Gallo-Roman period. It also displays a number of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque artworks from religious and secular buildings from the town and its surroundings; in many cases, those buildings themselves (such as Frederick Barbarossa's castle in Haguenau) have long disappeared. The museum also owns a collection of Strasbourg faience by the Hannong Family and a collection of modern art, including Art Nouveau glassware, and paintings.

The ethnographic and folk art collections relating to Alsace were moved to the Musée alsacien nearby in 1972.

References:

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Museums in France

User Reviews

DJ Nederfolk (17 months ago)
Compact but powerful. Excellent display of regional history.

Alan Kendrew (19 months ago)
Interesting, but I thought there might be something about more recent history, like during the two world wars where Haguenau played a significant part.

Paul Kroopkin (4 years ago)
A very pretty communal museum. Haguenau - a town from the beginning of XII century.

Benoit GOUSSEN (5 years ago)
Very nice and complete museum. The collection on the history of the area is really interesting and the building itself is stunning. You can visit it for a very attractive price.

Rene Jongeneelen (7 years ago)
We wanted to visit the museum, but the woman at the cash desk did not pay any attention to us because she was busy on the telephone. After 5 minutes waiting we left.. She did not even said hello, looked at us (we stood straight for her!) or asked to wait for a minute. She just totally ignored us. Very rude.

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