Georges Labit Museum, Art museum in Toulouse, France.
The Georges Labit Museum occupies a two-storey neo-Moorish villa built in 1893 by Toulouse architect Jules Calbairac, its cream walls banded with red brick and its upper floor centred on a projecting blue wooden balcony beneath a blue-tiled dome. Horseshoe arches frame the windows, and glazed tiles decorate the surrounds. The villa stands in a small garden of Asian and Mediterranean plants, near the Canal du Midi.
Georges Labit (1862–1899) gathered Asian art on his travels, and after his death his father Antoine donated the collection to Toulouse in 1893. The city opened the museum in a neo-Moorish villa built that year by architect Jules Calbairac. In 2023 the Egyptian collection, including the mummy Inimennaÿsnebout, moved to the Saint-Raymond museum.
The museum's name honours Georges Labit (1862–1899), a traveller and collector who gathered objects from India, Champa, Siam, Java, Nepal, Tibet, China and Japan, choosing them for their aesthetic quality. The garden around the villa is planted with Asian and Mediterranean species such as azaleas, bamboos, tree ferns and palms, each identified by a small label.
The museum stands east of the Busca district, between 43 rue des Martyrs-de-la-Libération, 17 rue du Japon and 3-5 boulevard Monplaisir, a short walk from the Canal du Midi. The villa, its concierge building, garden, boundary wall and four gates are partly listed as monuments historiques since 14 December 2021. The garden of Asian and Mediterranean plants is open to the public, with azaleas, bamboos, tree ferns and palms labelled by small signs.
The turquoise-tiled dome carries a metal crescent, a detail tied to the Islamic-inspired faïence motifs on the facade. The villa was built in 1893 by Toulouse architect Jules Calbairac, in the exotic-villa fashion that had spread among Western collectors since the 1860s. The garden's plants are labelled with small signs.
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