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Origin and history

The Musée de la Mosaïque et des Émaux de Briare is a French association museum located in Briare, Loiret department and the Centre-Val de Loire region. Created in 1994 as an association law of 1901, it was inaugurated on 13 June of the same year by Éric Doligé, then president of the Loiret General Council. Located in the pavilion of honour of the former Emaux de Briare factory, it perpetuates the industrial memory of this factory founded in 1837 as a competing factory of Gien.

The museum preserves a variety of collections illustrating the evolution of the company's techniques and productions: 19th and 20th century mosaics signed by Eugène Grasset, Félix Gaudin or Victor Vasarely, but also cameras, pearls, buttons and faiences. 19th-century machines, archival photographs and a video documentary present the manufacturing processes. Among the remarkable pieces are a reproduction of the spread-winged angel of Eugene Grasset, as well as plaster busts of Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie, carved by Jean-Auguste Barre in 1852-1853.

The museum also houses a numismatic collection of medals made by 19th-century French engravers, including several winners of the Prix de Rome or general engravers of currencies, such as Frédéric de Vernon, Louis-Alexandre Bottée or Désiré-Albert Barre. Works by foreign engravers, such as Leonard C. Wyon, complete this set. In 2011, La Poste honoured the museum by issuing a stamp to its effigy in the collection La France comme j'aime. With 13,558 visitors in 2012, it ranks as the 4th busiest museum in the Loiret.

In addition to its permanent collections, the museum offers temporary exhibitions, a 30-seat auditorium, a bookshop and a shop. It occupies a historic site, the rue des Vergers in Briare, where the former factory was located, and helps to enhance the industrial and artistic heritage of the Centre-Val de Loire region.

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