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Origin and history

The Wind Instruments Museum (MIV) is an ethnographic museum located in La Couture-Boussey (Eure), labeled "Musée de France". First museum dedicated to instrumental billing in France, it exhibits wind instruments of the family of wood made in the couturiot basin since the seventeenth century, as well as manufacturing techniques and archives related to local artisans. The region, rich in boxwood, is a historical centre for the production of instruments, with factors often musicians at the court of Versailles or Paris under Louis XV.

Founded in 1888 by a trade union of "music instrument finishers", the museum aimed to preserve the local know-how threatened by the industrial revolution. From its creation, it adopts a scientific and pedagogical approach, collecting ancient instruments, replicas, and manufacturing tools. The collections are enriched by donations from individuals, collectors and businesses, as well as by acquisitions, such as Pierre Le Sueur's Portrait of the Flutist Dressed in the Orientale in 2018.

The museum houses rare pieces, including Louis Cornet's oboe (1730), made of boxwood, ivory and brass, or prototypes of octa-counterbass clarinet (1939) and octa-contralto (1971) designed by Leblanc. It also maintains archives, tools and photographs of local Lutherans. Transferred in 1982 to the former village school, it is now integrated into a regional cultural network and collaborates with international museums via databases such as Monande and MIMO.

The Couture-Boussey owes its fame to dynasties of factors, such as the Noblet and Hoodeterre, which have made the village the European heart of woodmaking. Despite the decline in manufacturing activity since the second half of the 20th century, the museum perpetuates this memory by organizing temporary exhibitions and valuing emblematic instruments, such as those of Jacques-Martin Hotterre, musician of the king's chamber.

Ranked "Museum of France" since 2003, the establishment has since 2017 depended on the community of agglomeration Évreux Portes de Normandie. Its role goes beyond conservation: it transmits the economic, social and artistic history of a territory marked by craftsmanship of excellence, while adapting to contemporary cultural mediation issues.

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