The Musée Guimet is the national museum of Asian arts in France, and one of the most important in the world outside Asia. Founded by the industrialist Émile Guimet in 1889, the collection has grown through diplomatic gifts, colonial acquisitions and scholarly expeditions over more than a century. It covers civilisations from Egypt to Japan, with particular depth in South and Southeast Asia.
The Khmer collection, Cambodian sculpture from the ninth to the thirteenth century, is the largest outside Cambodia itself. The Gandharan collection traces the encounter between Greek and Buddhist art. The Japanese collection holds screens, ceramics and prints of exceptional quality. The museum is rarely crowded, and its size allows for a focused visit to one or two sections rather than an exhausting attempt to see everything.
What you will see
South and Southeast Asia. The Khmer galleries of Cambodian sculpture from the Angkor period are the largest collection outside Cambodia, with the extraordinary Harihara among them, and the Indian rooms hold bronzes from the south, several of them Chola-period Nataraja figures of a quality rarely seen outside India. Between the two sits the Gandharan sculpture of ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Greek and Buddhist traditions merged after the campaigns of Alexander, one of the most remarkable cultural encounters in world history.
The Far East. The Japanese collection runs from the Heian period to the Meiji era in screens, lacquer, ceramics and prints, much of it shown in the Panthéon bouddhique, the museum's annexe a few doors away, set in a quiet garden.
The Khmer galleries · Gandhara · the Panthéon bouddhique
Pépin's advice
Decide your focus in advance. The museum covers too much ground for a single visit to do justice to all of it. Choosing one or two cultures, Cambodia and India, or Japan and China, makes for a more satisfying experience than attempting the whole collection.
Keep time for the Panthéon bouddhique. The Buddhist sculpture in the adjoining building is shown in a beautiful garden setting and is often missed by visitors to the main galleries.
