Paris - know a good small esoteric museum?
 

I'm going on a 10-day trip to Paris at the end of the summer. I've been many times before, but not for 5 years. I'm a huge museum fan and have worked my way through the biggies and a lot of the smaller museums (and plan on repeating a lot of them this time around.)

Do you have a favorite small esoteric museum that I should check out?

A few on my list (to give you an idea of what I'm looking for):

Chasse et de la Nature
Histoire de la Medecine
Fragonard

I'm new to this forum, so I'm looking forward to a lively and informative exchange of ideas here!

Thanks in advance,
Mark

2 museums off the beaten track we visited and enjoyed very
much last trip were:

Musee Delacroix on Place Furstemburg
Musee Clemenceau at 8 rue Benjamin Franklin

Both museums are in the apartments where the men lived
and worked. In the case of the latter, it is left exactly
as it was the day he died in 1929.

http://musee-clemenceau.fr/en/index.html

http://www.musee-delacroix.fr

Thanks for these suggestions! I've been to both of these museums and recommend them as well. I may just have to re-visit the Delacroix since your mention of it has piqued my interest again.

Mark

My husband and I enjoyed the museum at the Pasteur Institut http://www.pasteur.fr/ip/easysite/pa.../musee-pasteur

It is quite small but enjoyable. A small lab that summarizes Pasteur's major scientific contributions, the apartment where he lived the last 7 years of his life and his tomb. Check the website for opening hours as I recall they are limited. Within walking distance of the Pasteur Metro stop.

Pasteur Institut? Sounds worthy of visit to me! Thanks for the insight (and the link.)

Mark

You've probably been to the Marmottan in the 16th -- it's one of my favorites, anywhere.

Don

Nissim de Camondo overlooking Parc Monceau

http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/engl...e-camondo-742/

There are so many, you can google to find them.
As you like LA chasse de Nature, you must visit my
favorite shop Deyrolle

Deyrolle looks intriguing! Reminds me of The Evolution Store here in NYC...I'll definitely be checking it out.

Thanks!

Here's three more I thought of:

George Sand museum: http://www.placesinfrance.com/musee_...omantique.html

Musee de Montmartre: http://www.placesinfrance.com/musee_...re_museum.html

Musee de Cernuschi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_Cernuschi

Le Musée de la Préfecture de Police:

http://www.prefecturedepolice.interi...ture-de-police

The Musée des Arts Forains is great, but you have to sign up for a reservation.

The Musee Grevin gives the impression of being a tourist trap, but it is very creatively put together.

The Curie Museum
http://www.curie.fr/en/Curie-museum

The last time I went, the only other people there was a small group of French science teachers.

Maison de Victor Hugo in Place des Voges is interesting both from an insight into his life and a look at what the houses in the Place looked like in the 1800s.

Has anyone been to the exhibiton about Madame Gres at the Musee Bourdelle? Any tips on museums about fashion?

There used to be a fascinating Musee des Arts et Traditions Populaires near the Bois de Boulogne, but I believe the collection has been transferred somewhere else now?

For industrial-age technology, try Les Egouts de Paris, the Paris sewer museum. Entrance to the sewer (no, you can't just follow your nose) is adjacent to Pont de l'Alma, across from 93 quai d'Orsay in the 7th. It's a Paris municipal museum but www.Paris.fr isn't much help. Oddly, the display and the sewer are closed Thursday and Friday while open the other five days of the week. Sometimes sewer workers provide a guided tour but I couldn't find a schedule and you can navigate by yourself.
For a nice appreciation and photos, try this blog:
http://museumchick.com/2010/05/sewer...ts-museum.html

Thanks to everyone for these great recommendations!

Let us know which ones you you chose or anything else you discover.

bookmarking

I enjoyed the Piaf museum back in 2008. It's located in a fan's apartment in Belleville, and you have to call ahead and reserve. It's free btw, but it's nice to leave a couple of euro.

Seconding the
http://www.pavillons-de-bercy.com/EN/index.html
This is a private collection/museum with carnival/carousel items; as stated previously, you need a reservation, and when I was there two years ago, the tour was only in French. However, it is truly a visual museum and not much is lost if you don't understand the narrative. My guide knew a little English anyway and went out of her way to give me some minimum information while others were wandering around. There are carousels you ride, and a ball-operated waiter race, and singing characters. It is a lot of fun. It is at Bercy Parc and easily reached via Metro.

Musée de l'Erotisme - 72, boul. de Clichy

Musée de la Musique - in the Parc de la Villette

Musée de la Vie Rommantique - 16, rue Chaptal in the 9ème

And of course Sunday brunch at the Musée Jacquemart-André.

that should have been Romantique...

UPDATE: I found a great book (in French) that I thought I would pass on to everyone interested in smaller, unusual museums in Paris:

Musées insolites de Paris : Collections secrètes, curiosités, objets rares

The author is Dominique Lesbros and it's a Parigramme publication. Parigramme puts out tons of great guides and Paris-centric books. Some of their most popular publications have been translated into English as well.

I think every museum mentioned in this thread is listed in this book, as well as dozens more. Whets my appetite for lots of off-the-beaten-track museum exploration in Paris!

Mark

Bookmarking

I leave for Paris in 3 weeks, so I'm reviving this post to see if anyone else has any additional suggestions. Thus far, here is a list of small museums from which I'm considering:

Anees 30
Chasse et de la Nature
Contrefacon
Dapper
Fragonard (at the Vet university)
Histoire de la Medecine
Maillol
Panthéon bouddhique
Zadkine

If you know of an interesting little museum in Paris that you don't see in my list or in the posts above, please pass it along!

This insatiable museophile thanks you advance!

Mark

There are several museums of medicine in Paris. One is on the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine (lots of instruments, history of medecine); one is up across from Val de Grace on the Boulevard de Port Royal (contains wax masks of head injuries made during the Napoleonic Wars, I think, haven't been able to get into this one yet) ; a third is actually inside the Ecole de Medecine. This last one can only be visited by guided tour in French, but it is fascinating-- Dr. Dupetreyn's Museum of Medical Anomalies. Broca's Brain is on exhibit. Some might find this one too much.

All 3 are open limited hours/days of week. I found out about them through browsing ParisScope, but they are not always listed.

I second the vote for the Police Museum, lots of artifacts and true crime photos.

One last find-- in the Mediatheque of the Jardin des Plantes is the only surviving remnant of Bonnier de Masson's Cabinet of Curiosities, which once filled seven rooms. He was the son of a 17th tax collector, spent all the family $ on collections (and opera singers, allegedly), had to sell it to pay his debts. It is a beautiful rococo cabinet in white and green filled with daintily arranged specimens and dried animals.

I quite liked the Postal Museum in Montparnasse.

I really like the Maillol but I wouldn't have thought of it in this cateogory as some small, esoteric museum. It's pretty well known and a lot larger , and not in the same category as, say the Postal Musem. But it is a nice small art museum, but not particularly esoteric at all. The Zadkine isn't esoteric, either, although I wasn't that crazy about it that I'd make it a priority.

There is the museum of hospitals if you are really interested in medicine, but I wouldn't go there if you aren't (or the other medical ones). It's down near the Seine.

Here are three I have on my list for possible visits:

Bibliothèque National - Exhibit of Globes de Louis XIV
http://www.bnf.fr/fr/evenements_et_c...positions.html

Institut du Monde Arabe - Zaha Hadid exhibit
http://www.imarabe.org/exposition/a-la-une
Interesting Jean Nouvel building

Cinemathèque - Various exhibits
http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/infosp...-horaires.html
Frank Gehry building

Not really museums, I suppose, but interesting nevertheless.