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Origin and history

The Georges-Labit Museum is a municipal museum in Toulouse, founded in 1893 thanks to the donation of Antoine Labit, who offered the city the collections of his son, Georges Labit (1862–99). The latter, a traveler, ethnologist and collector, gathered art objects from the Far East and ancient Egypt, chosen for their aesthetic qualities and their representativeness of ancient cultures. The collections cover India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Java, Nepal, Tibet, China and Japan, as well as a rare set of Egyptian Coptic objects.

The neo-Mauresque villa, designed in 1893 by Toulouse architect Jules Calbairac, reflects the Western elite's enthusiasm for orientalism. Its facades, decorated with overpassed arches, bricks and white crepi, as well as its earthenware tiles inspired by Islamic art, make it an emblematic building. The garden, populated by Asian and Mediterranean plants, is adjacent to the Canal du Midi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site, partially listed as historical monuments in 2021, includes facades, roofs, garden and portals.

The collections, enriched by donations and deposits from the Guimet Museum, are among the oldest in France dedicated to Asian art. There are Buddhist sculptures from Gandhara (I–III century), Chinese bronzes, Japanese theatre masks, Tibetan Thang-kas and an Egyptian mummy, Inimennaÿsnebout, studied scientifically. In 2023, this mummy and Egyptian collection were transferred to the Saint-Raymond Museum during renovation work.

Georges Labit, son of Antoine Labit (founder of the department store La Maison Universelle in Toulouse), travelled from 1884 to Europe and Asia to form his collection. In debt and under guardianship, he was commissioned by his father to search for exotic products, while acquiring ethnographic objects. Its museum, conceived as a bourgeois house adapted to the exhibition, illustrates its ambition to share these treasures with the public.

The museum also houses objects from the kingdom of Champa (present-day Vietnam), Chinese jades, Japanese prints and inrō with their netukes. Its eclectic architecture, mixing Moorish and Oriental influences, and its botanical garden make it a unique place, at the crossroads of cultures and eras.

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