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Origin and history

The Maurice-Dufresne Museum occupies a historic site in Marnay, hamlet of Azay-le-Rideau en Touraine. Originally, a mill of the tenth century, mentioned in 1026 when Geoffroy of the Island donated it to Cormery Abbey, served for centuries to grind the grain. In the 19th century, three paper mills founded in 1837 a prosperous stationery, active until the 1929 crisis. The site, abandoned after 1939, successively became cannery, garment shops and agricultural depot, before being bought in 1983 by Maurice Dufresne, a local industrialist passionate about mechanics.

Maurice Dufresne (1930–2008), a former marshal-ferrant who became an entrepreneur in material recovery, devoted 40 years to bringing together a unique collection of machines, vehicles and technical objects from all over France. To preserve them, it remained the former stationery and its original mechanisms, including a blade wheel and a 19th century turbine still functional. The museum opened in 1992, presenting 3,000 pieces on 1 km of course, from looms to aircraft through a 1792 guillotine or a 1898 Mogul tractor.

The museum, private and self-financing, operates without public subsidies. After the death of Maurice Dufresne in 2008, his widow and their children inherited it. The site employs nine people to maintain the collections and the 10,000 m2 of exhibition, including rare industrial vehicles such as a First World War Latil truck or a Caudron glider. Outside, a 34-ton steam crane and locomobiles recall the industrial era.

The originality of the place is due to its eclectic character: armory (1,600 weapons), vehicles (250 models), old posters and agricultural machines alongside unusual pieces like a perfume pump belonging to François Coty. The design preserves the spirit of the 19th century workshops, with driveways lined with vehicles leading to the old stationery, whose hydraulic mechanisms were restored to function as at the time.

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