Musée d'Archéologie nationale

538 Cypriot objects, Early Bronze Age to Roman, mostly unprovenanced purchases and gifts of 1869-1934, kept in the Archéologie comparée department; only a small part is on show (2012)

Boucher 2012

1. 8 March 1862
   Museum created at the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye by decree of Napoleon III; its remit is the archaeology of France, but foreign collections were inventoried from the start

   Boucher 2012

2. May 1867
   Opened as the Musée des Antiquités celtiques et romaines

   Boucher 2012

3. 1869
   First Cypriot objects enter the inventory: two terracottas (inv. 10476, 10477) bought from Rollin; a terracotta and a limestone statuette brought back from the Louvre by Alexandre Bertrand on 6 October 1869

   Alexandre BertrandC. RollinBoucher 2012

4. March 1870
   At the Paris sale of Luigi Palma di Cesnola's collection the museum buys a little over eighty Cypriot objects (inventory nos 15132-15169 are noted as Bertrand's purchase at the Cesnola sale); Bertrand annotated the sale catalogue with prices and buyers; about ten more objects bought the same year from the expert Henri Léman (nos 13808-13815)

   Luigi Palma di CesnolaAlexandre BertrandBoucher 2012Masson 1996

5. 1870
   Vicomte Lepic gives about fifty Hellenistic terracottas and two stone statuettes, probably from the Salines of Larnaca (Kition)

   Larnaca-SalinesVicomte LepicBoucher 2012

6. 1872
   Georges Colonna-Ceccaldi sells about forty objects (terracotta figurines, statue parts, vases, a copper-alloy dagger), probably mostly from Idalion necropoleis; in 1873 he gives gilded terracotta beads from a Hellenistic funerary crown, glass beads and mosaic cubes

   IdalionGeorges Colonna CeccaldiBoucher 2012

7. 1873
   Four vases from the Pierides family collection bought

   Boucher 2012

8. 1874–1875
   About thirty Cypriot objects bought, mainly at public sales; the anthropomorphic vase inv. 22231 bought from Rollin et Feuardent (Bertrand, 26 December 1874), ex-Cesnola

   Alexandre BertrandGaston Louis FeuardentBoucher 2012

9. 1881–1883
   Cesnola writes to Bertrand (17 August 1881, 23 November 1882) and to Salomon Reinach (26 November 1882, 25 January 1883) asking how vase 22231 reached the museum

   Luigi Palma di CesnolaAlexandre BertrandSalomon ReinachBoucher 2012

10. 1883
    Henri de Morgan's unpublished manuscript 'Archéologie chypriote. Une enquête sur certaines découvertes en Chypre. L'affaire Cesnola' later enters the museum's library; it traces vase 22231 to lot 31 of the London sale of 1 May 1871, bought by Gaston Feuardent

    Henri de MorganGaston Louis FeuardentBoucher 2012Masson 1990

11. 1886
    Cessac mission: six vases and a pendant given by the Ministère de l'Instruction publique, provenance unknown

    Boucher 2012

12. 1888
    Eight vases from Ohnefalsch-Richter's excavations at Polis/Marion-Arsinoe bought at the Geslin sale (Geslin had acquired them in Paris in 1887)

    Polis-tis-ChrysochouMax Ohnefalsch-RichterJ.-C. GeslinBoucher 2012

13. 1891
    Three Cypriot terracottas bought at the Julien Gréau sale; the same year Consul Dozon gives two stone statuette heads and three vases

    Julien GréauLouis Auguste DozonBoucher 2012Caubet 1993

14. 1903
    Aymé-Rambert bequest includes two Cypriot vases

    Boucher 2012

15. 1914
    Salomon Reinach gives 72 coins and 31 archaeological objects (inv. 60936-60945), mostly bought in 1880 from a Cypriot priest, described by him as of little value

    Salomon ReinachBoucher 2012

16. 1920
    Purchase of the Intendant général Courtot collection adds a Cypriot dagger blade, three spearheads and a socketed axe

    Boucher 2012

17. 1924
    Piketty collection gift (by his grandsons) adds a dagger, a spearhead and a socketed axe

    Boucher 2012

18. 1933
    Claude Schaeffer appointed to the museum; he had begun fieldwork on Cyprus in 1933

    Claude Frédéric-Armand SchaefferBoucher 2012

19. 1933–1958
    Schaeffer gives ancient ores from Skouriotissa (1933, nos 76619-76626), 43 objects from Vounous (1934, nos 77121-77124) and about fifty from Enkomi (1958, nos 81204-81245); also 21 vases from Myres's 1913 Lefkoniko excavation, including a large pithos

    Enkomi, Vounous, Skouriotissa, LefkonikoClaude Frédéric-Armand SchaefferJohn Linton MyresBoucher 2012

20. 1934
    Antiquary Emmanuel Segredakis gives about forty copper-alloy dagger blades, spearheads and tools (nos 77114-77119)

    Emmanuel (Manolis) SegredakisBoucher 2012

21. 1982
    Cypriot collection published in Archéologie comparée 1, Catalogue sommaire (Caubet and Mohen)

    Annie CaubetJean-Pierre MohenBoucher 2012

22. 1984
    Reinstalled Salle d'Archéologie comparée opens; a condensed selection of Cypriot objects shown in the eastern and central Mediterranean case

    Boucher 2012

23. 2011–2012
    Ten-year inventory check (récolement) of the Cypriot collection by Nathalie Baills-Talbi and Anaïs Boucher; unrecorded objects found (about twenty Roman glass items, uninventoried Enkomi sherds)

    Anaïs BoucherBoucher 2012

24. November 2011
    Acquires a limestone female head with kekryphalos, reputed from Idalion, ex-De Clercq collection (published by De Ridder 1908), not chosen in the 1967 gift to the Louvre and later dispersed through Nicolas Koutoulakis

    Idalion (reputed)Louis Constantin Henri François-Xavier de ClercqNicolas KoutoulakisBoucher 2012

• Anthropomorphic vase with a human face on the neck (6th c. BCE), 20 cm; ex-Cesnola, London sale 1 May 1871 lot 31; central to the Cesnola affair

  22231from Dali or Golgoi (Cesnola gave both)via Rollin et Feuardent26 December 1874Boucher 2012Masson 1996, p. 6

• Bull-headed jug from tomb 145, Necropolis II, Marion-Arsinoe (Ohnefalsch-Richter's excavations); on display

  31293from Polis-tis-Chrysochou, Marion necropolis IIvia J.-C. Geslin1888Boucher 2012

• Cesnola sale objects

  15132-15169via Luigi Palma di Cesnola1870Masson 1996

• Large pithos from Myres's Lefkoniko excavation (on display)

  from Lefkonikovia Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer1913Boucher 2012

• Objects from Vounous (43 objects, 1934)

  77121-77124from Vounousvia Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer1934Boucher 2012

• About fifty objects from Enkomi

  81204-81245from Enkomivia Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer1958Boucher 2012

• Limestone female head with kekryphalos, reputed from Idalion, ex-De Clercq

  from Idalion (reputed, unsupported)November 2011Boucher 2012

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