Museum of the Argonne Viard-Morel à Argers dans la Marne

Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Musée de l'Argonne Viard-Morel came into being in 1920, when the Municipal Council of Argers decided to set up a museum dedicated to the objects of the Great War, as well as to local fossils and minerals. This project is part of a building bequeathed to the city in 1907 by the Viard-Morel family, on condition of making it a cultural space. The museum developed modestly until 1973, when Gérard Mourlet, a volunteer curator, gave him a new boost.

In 2004, the museum closed for old age, launching an ambitious renovation project supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Champagne-Ardenne Region and the General Council of the Marne. The aim is to bring together the media library, museum and cyberspace in one place, with particular attention to the preservation, study and mediation of collections. A complete inventory and restoration program are conducted prior to reopening in October 2011.

The museum then obtained the name Musée de France, recognizing its role in valuing local heritage. Its collections, enriched over time, now cover regional history, fine arts (paintings of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, sculptures), sacred art, natural sciences (paleontology, malacology) and urban planning, illustrating the military, religious and scientific past of the Argonne. The building itself, a former 18th-century hotel housing the Champagne Subdelegation, adds a heritage dimension to the whole.

Although the source text also mentions the Museum of St.Menehould, it is a separate entity, centred on the art and local history of this city, from the Middle Ages to the century of the Enlightenment. Both institutions, although complementary in their approach to regional heritage, remain independent of each other.

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