Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Rouen, Natural history museum in Rouen, France.
The Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Rouen occupies the 17th-century Couvent Sainte-Marie, entered through a round-headed stone arch with a glass door beneath a banner reading "Une collection unique au monde". It holds more than 500,000 objects and specimens from around the world, making it the second largest natural history museum in France after the Muséum national in Paris.
The museum was founded in 1828 by Adrien Charles Deshommets de Martainville, mayor of Rouen, and installed in the 17th-century convent Sainte-Marie. Félix Archimède Pouchet became its first curator that year. Closed for a decade, it reopened on 23 February 2007 after safety upgrades. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the Réunion des Musées Métropolitains Rouen Normandie.
The museum's ethnographic galleries are shaped with the communities they come from: since 2011 the Oceanian section has been developed with Maori input and the Te Papa Tongarewa museum in Wellington, and Maori artist George Nuku led its presentation. In 2012 the museum received the adornment of Mundiya Kepanga, a Papuan chief of the Hulli people. The Asian section opened in October 2014 with Indonesian artists Agus Koeciank and Jenny Lee.
The museum occupies the 17th-century Couvent Sainte-Marie and has been labelled Tourisme et Handicap for motor and mental disabilities since 2009. It reopened on 23 February 2007 after six months of safety-standard works, following a decade of closure. A project plans to merge it with the Musée des Antiquités into a new museum hub in 2028.
The museum has returned a tattooed, mummified Māori head held since 1875 to New Zealand, after Rouen's 2007 restitution order was blocked by French courts and a 2009 Senate bill. The Oceanian gallery was reworked with Māori artist George Nuku, and in 2012 the museum received the adornment of Mundiya Kepanga, a Huli chief from Papua New Guinea.
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