Musée des arts africains, océaniens et amérindiens, Ethnographic museum in Vieille Charité, Marseille, France.
The Museum of African, Oceanian, and Amerindian Arts is housed in the Vieille Charité and displays masks, statues, and ceremonial objects from three continents, with collections primarily arranged on the second floor. The exhibition areas separate African ritual pieces, Oceanian artworks, and American indigenous items into distinct galleries.
The museum was created in 1992 under the archaeologist and anthropologist Alain Nicolas, on the second floor of the Vieille Charité in Marseille. Its African room holds the donation of the Marseille lawyer Pierre Guerre (1910-1978), joined by objects from the city's former colonial museums. The city bought the carved-skull collection of Dr Gastaut (1915-1995) in 1989, and filmmaker François Reichenbach left his Mexican popular art to Marseille.
The Africa room displays the donation of Marseille lawyer Pierre Guerre (1910–1978), a major collector of African art, alongside objects from the city's former colonial museums once deposited at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Pieces are grouped by people: a Diola ejumba mask of horns, fibres and seeds from Senegal, used in an initiation ceremony held every twenty or twenty-five years to pass traditions from one generation to the next, and a Marka mask from Burkina Faso sheathed in brass leaf.
The museum occupies the second floor of the Vieille Charité in Marseille's 2nd arrondissement; the Mediterranean Archaeology Museum is on the first floor of the same building. Access to the collections is by the building's stairs, so plan for several flights. The three exhibition rooms are the Africa room, the Oceania and America room, and the Mexico room.
The Oceanian and American room displays the skull collection of Dr. Gastaut (1915–1995), acquired by the city in 1989. These human skulls were sculpted, painted, modelled over or engraved. The room also holds feather ornaments given to Dr. Marcel Heckenroth during his service in French Guiana between 1939 and 1942.
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