Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Armenian Museum of France, founded in 1949 by Nourhan Fringhian, has the mission of preserving Armenian memory and culture in the diaspora. It was officially founded on 24 April 1953 by ministerial decree at 59 Avenue Foch in Paris in a building owned by the State which also houses the Ennery Museum. Inaugurated on 9 October 1953 in the presence of President Vincent Auriol and several ministers, it becomes an emblematic place of Armenian culture in Europe.

In 1978, its collections were recognized as public utility and declared inalienable by the State. Hosted in the 1980s by Bared Pamboukdjian, a collector born in Constantinople, the museum closed to the public in 1995 due to the non-compliance of its premises. Despite this closure, it continues its activities through scientific work, publications and external exhibitions.

In 2007, during the year of Armenia in France, the museum reopens exceptionally with the intervention of President Jacques Chirac. However, in 2012, the Ministry of Culture deprived him of access to his exhibition spaces on the ground floor of the Ennery Museum. Since 2014, judicial proceedings are under way to recover these rooms. In 2023, a project plans to transfer its collections to the Louvre, in the future department of Christians in the Orient.

The museum houses works of archaeology (kingdom of Urartu), sacred art (manuscripts, bindings, liturgical objects) and secular art (paintings by Ivan Aivazovski, Edgar Chahine, Jansem, sculptures). Its collections, among the richest in Europe with those of the Mekhitarist congregation in Venice, remain partially accessible via its website and loans to other institutions such as the Louvre or the National Marine Museum.

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