Collections Baur, East Asian art museum in Genève-Cité, Switzerland.
Collections Baur occupies an 18th-century townhouse at 8 rue Munier-Romilly in Geneva's old town, near the Parc des Bastions. Its rooms hold Chinese and Japanese ceramics, jades, netsuke, lacquer, textiles and paintings, with the Japanese sword fittings and the Baur family's former living quarters among the spaces visitors pass through.
Alfred Baur, a Geneva businessman who made his fortune in Ceylon, began collecting East Asian art in the 1920s and opened his foundation in 1964. The museum was first housed in a villa on the rue Munier-Romilly, where it remains today. Baur died in 1951, before the foundation opened; his widow continued the project.
The museum's name honours Alfred Baur, a Geneva businessman who built the collection through purchases and commissions in Japan and China. Among the holdings are Japanese woodblock prints, Chinese jades and export porcelain, and a group of netsuke, the small carved toggles once worn on Japanese kimono cords. The objects were made for tea ceremonies, scholarly desks and daily use.
Collections Baur occupies a townhouse at rue Munier-Romilly 8, in the Rive district on the left bank of the Rhône, a short walk from the Rive tram stop. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday afternoons; admission is free on the first Sunday of the month. The Japanese prints and the netsuke are shown in rotation because of light sensitivity, so ask at the desk which rooms are open.
Alfred Baur began collecting Japanese and Chinese objects only after retiring from his business in Ceylon and Burma, and he gave the collection to a foundation in 1964. The museum opened in the Villa Baur, a 19th-century house on Rue Munier-Romilly in the old town of Geneva.
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