Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Cognac Museum of Art and History is housed in the Dupuy d'Angeac Hotel, a building built in 1838. This building, integrated into Cognac's public garden, is the result of the meeting of the gardens of the Hotel Otard de la Grange and the Hotel Dupuy d'Angeac, acquired by the city in 1889. The landscaper Édouard André redesigned this park into a hollow garden, with views and a water body, before the city did its town hall in 1892. The Dupuy d'Angeac hotel, bought in 1921, became the museum in 1925, after arrangements to marry the two gardens while maintaining the style of André.

The museum has gradually expanded, including opening exhibition spaces on the ground floor and offices upstairs. After a renovation in 2024, it was renamed Maison du Negotiateur, highlighting the collections related to the cognac dealers, at the origin of its creation. Its departments cover archaeology, ceramics (with a rich collection of local and Chinese faiences), fine arts (Charentais and art nouveau), and popular arts and traditions, illustrating local rural life in the 19th century.

Among the major pieces are a neolithic monoxile canoe, the faiences of Delft and Charente, as well as art nouveau objects signed Gallé, Daum or Lalique. The museum also reconstructs a rural interior typical of the small wine growers of the region, with traditional costumes such as quichnottes and Saintongese capes. Its history is thus closely linked to that of cognac traders and local handicrafts.

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