Installed in a 14th century house, known as “Charles IX”, this museum traces the history of the Couleuvre art porcelain factory founded in 1789. The number and diversity of its exhibited pieces (200,000 molds and more than 6,000 original models) offer a visit to the history of French decorative arts and the richness of the decorations, characteristic of Couleuvre porcelain.
The Anne-de-Beaujeu Museum, a heritage site of the Allier Department, occupies the Renaissance pavilion built by Anne de France and Pierre de Beaujeu around 1500, which closed the courtyard of the prestigious palace of the Dukes of Bourbon. Its varied collections (archaeology, medieval sculptures, altarpieces, Moulins earthenware, 19th-century paintings, etc.) are spread over three levels. The museum is also committed to supporting artists through creative work, notably through the establishment of residencies (visual arts and writing short fiction film scripts). Adjacent to the museum, the Maison Mantin allows visitors to continue their journey through the department’s heritage. Louis Mantin was a sub-prefect, collector, and vice-president of a learned society, the Société d’émulation du Bourbonnais. He bequeathed his house in 1905 and demanded that it be preserved in its original state and still open to the public a century after his death. Refined, elegant and mysterious, his house is, like him, a showcase of riches that reveals itself.
Housed in the Hôtel de Mora, a magnificent 18th-century mansion, the Musée de l’Illustration Jeunesse, a heritage site of the Allier Department, is an exceptional venue dedicated to children’s book illustration. Through exhibitions, activities, and a library of albums, visitors are invited to discover the history of illustration, creative techniques, artists, and original works. The museum also supports artists by supporting creative work, including the Grand Prix de l’illustration and three residencies (illustration, visual arts, and short fiction scriptwriting).
This museum presents works by Josette Bournet, painter and ceramist born in Vichy in 1905 and died in Nice in 1962. Portraits, seascapes, still lifes, religious works and ceramics, numerous collection pieces are exhibited each year to illustrate the work of this artist in connection with the other artists of her time.
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In May:
* Sunday, May 11 at 3 pm // Concert: Azarak
The duo AZARAK – Sukanta Bose Jurain, vocals, and Alexandre Bose Jurain, esraj – performs music at the intersection of India and the West.
Free admission. Reservations: call 07 82 29 09 02 or email museejosettebournet@laposte.net
* Sunday, May 25 at 5 pm // Cinema: Les Insolites – Part 3
Documentary film by Marie-Christine Duchalet and Pierre Gadrey (52 min). Screening followed by a discussion with the audience in the presence of the directors.
Two artist portraits: Claire Forgeot, based in Moulins, who explores painting, sculpture, and drawing, and Éric Roux-Fontaine, painter, based in Les Clayes-sous-Bois. Each of them explores, in their own unique way, the relationship between nature and human beings.
Free admission. Reservations can be made by calling +33 7 82 29 09 02 or by email at museejosettebournet@laposte.net
In June:
* Sunday, June 15 // Concert: Magali Goimard
Free admission. Reservations can be made by calling +33 7 82 29 09 02 or by email at museejosettebournet@laposte.net
In July:
* Sunday, July 6 at 5 p.m. // Theater: Great Fear and Misery of the Third Reich
A play by Bertold Brecht, presented by the Bûle Theater Workshop.
After working on Ariel Dorfman’s text “Death and the Maiden,” the Bûle Theater wanted to continue its exploration of the theme of dictatorship in a world where, on all sides, totalitarian systems are being established and seem poised to become the new world order. Brecht’s play relentlessly shows how external oppression profoundly changes people’s behavior in their private lives and in relationships within their families, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
Free participation. Reservations: 07 82 29 09 02 or by email at museejosettebournet@laposte.net
* Thursday, July 17 at 5 p.m. // Concert: Marius Van Oers
Marius Van Oers, pianist, performs works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Liszt.
In August:
* From August 7 to Tuesday, August 12 // Théâtre de Bourbon
The Josette Bournet Museum hosts six performances of the Théâtres de Bourbon festival. Shows at 8:30 p.m. Admission: €20, concessions: €10.
Program, information, and reservations: https://www.theatresdebourbon.com – Telephone: +33 6 64 62 30 91
* Saturday, August 23 at 6 p.m. // Lecture-Concert: Toward Rodrigues
Excerpts from the novel The Gold Seeker by J. M. G. Le Clézio, read by Yves Penay, and movements from the violin sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, by violinist Olivier Rabet.
Alexis discovers in his father’s papers the potential existence of a hidden treasure on the island of Rodrigues. Called by the open sea and adventure, he embarked aboard the Zéta, a three-masted schooner owned by Captain Bradmer and a Comorian helmsman, where he finally discovered the long-awaited joy of sailing. Free admission. Reservations can be made at +33 7 82 29 09 02 or by email at museejosettebournet@laposte.net
In September:
* Sunday, September 7 at 6 p.m. // Reading-Concert: Vildrac, Puccini, and Verdi
The Bournet Museum invites you to meet a friend of Josette Bournet: the poet and playwright Charles Vildrac (1882-1971).
Between 1910 and 1920, Vildrac published three collections of poems in free verse and prose: Livre d’amour, Découvertes, and Chants du desespéré. Jean-Gil Grandet will read some of these poems, of which Vildrac said: “I wanted to create a human and direct art.”
Through their tone, their lyricism, their exaltation of feeling, and their simplicity, it seemed to us that these poems resonated with opera arias by Puccini and Verdi. Marie-Elisabeth Leca, soprano, and Elisabeth Niezgoda, piano, will respond to Vildrac’s texts by performing a few arias by the two Italian composers.
Free admission. Reservations can be made by calling 07 82 29 09 02 or by emailing museejosettebournet@laposte.net
* Saturday, September 20 // European Heritage Days
– From 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. // From Sappho to Brigitte Fontaine, with Le Livre à venir
The bookstore (located in Chantelle) is presenting a stand at the Josette Bournet Museum featuring works by women poets from Antiquity to the 21st century, both French and foreign. Feminist and women’s rights publications will also be on sale.
– At 4 p.m. // Lecture: Christine de Pizan, a professional writer during the Hundred Years’ War
The Josette Bournet Museum invites you to discover or delve deeper into the life and work of Christine de Pizan (1365-1430), famous in her time for her poetry that still moves us, for her political thinking on what was not yet called a State or Nation, and for her defense of the dignity of “women past, present, and future.”
Through this lecture by Danièle Lajoumard, we will see Christine de Pizan living, writing, and thinking among her contemporaries at the end of the Middle Ages, when the Renaissance was already taking shape, and listen to some of her texts that still speak to us after six centuries.
Free admission. Reservations: call +33 7 82 29 09 02 or email museejosettebournet@laposte.net
Museum installed in a former 19th century thermal establishment. Fine Arts, photography, sacred art, ethnography, music, contemporary creation: the Museum of African and Asian Arts illustrates the artistic diversity of the civilizations of Africa and Asia but also of Oceania and America. Every year, temporary exhibitions tell the story of the world of yesterday and today and offer a cultural journey across borders.