Musée Sainte-Croix, Art and archaeological museum in Poitiers, France
The Musée Sainte-Croix is an art and archaeological museum in Poitiers presenting works from prehistoric times to contemporary art. The collection spans multiple galleries housed within a modern concrete and glass structure designed to display everything from ancient objects to modern sculptures.
Poitiers' first museum was founded in 1820 and later occupied the ground floor of the new town hall. In 1947 a major donation by the Société des Antiquaires de l'Ouest enriched its archaeology, numismatics and fine arts. The architect Jean Monge, winner of the Équerre d'Argent in 1973, designed the present building, which opened on 21 December 1974 as the Centre culturel Sainte-Croix on the site of the former Sainte-Croix abbey, moved to Saint-Benoît. It has held the Patrimoine du XXe siècle label since September 2015.
The museum's name comes from the former Abbaye Sainte-Croix, whose site it occupies; the abbey itself moved to Saint-Benoît. Its collections trace the history of Poitou, from Magdalenian engravings of the grotto of La Marche to the 1677 polychrome wood Grand'Goule of Jean Gargot. Since 2009 it has absorbed the collections of the closed Musée Rupert-de-Chièvres.
The museum stands on the site of the former Abbaye Sainte-Croix, and its reserves in Vouneuil-sous-Biard hold about 1.2 million inventoried objects, freeing over 1,000 m² of exhibition space inside the building. The permanent route follows a chronological order from prehistory and archaeology to the fine arts, and collections from the Rupert-de-Chièvres museum, closed since 2009, have joined it.
In 2024 the museum received an exceptional bequest from the artist and collector Eugénie Dubreuil: 500 works made by women, from the 17th to the 21st century. Called La Musée, it is described as the largest French collection of works by women artists.
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