The Calvet Museum, Avignon, was founded in the early nineteenth century following the donation to the city by the doctor and art lover Calvet Spirit from his personal collection. The bequest included a library, a natural history collection and a cabinet of antiquities.
The museum is housed at the hotel Villeneuve-Martignan, purchased by the municipality in 1833. protected as historic monuments, this mansion dates from the eighteenth century. Since the 1980s, this site is dedicated to the art collections, the former chapel of the Jesuit college houses the lapidary collections (archeology).
Considered one of the richest in the region, the fund Calvet museum contains in terms of fine arts an extensive collection of French paintings: are well preserved paintings signed including Nicolas Mignard and Pierre Mignard (XVI, XVII) Joseph Vernet, Van Loo, David (XVIII), Corot, Sisley (XIX) and finally Bernard, Bonnard, Buffet, Valadon, or De Vlaminck (twentieth). The so-called school Avignon (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), appeared in the establishment of the papacy in the city, is also well represented.
This partial list includes even to paint "Nordic" Dürer, Brueghel the Elder and the Younger Brueghel.
As for sculpture, the museum has in particular works of Camille Claudel and Louis Veray.
Drawings by Daumier, Boudin, Toulouse-Lautrec or Veronese and Modigliani, tapestries of sixteenth-century Flanders, the walnut furniture sixteenth, a paint firm seventeenth last among the major pieces of the funds plan the fine Arts.
In terms of archeology, Egyptian and Etruscan sarcophagi and statues of warriors Gauls are presented.
Temporary exhibitions and events are offered throughout the year.
Open all year except Tuesdays and 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.
The visit of the permanent collections is free. Information +33 4 90 86 33 84.
