Musée d’Art et d’Histoire is one of the prominent museum of Geneva with more than 23000 objects in collection. It is also the largest art gallery in the city of Geneva situated near the Old Town . Thematically categorized and separated collections are displayed in an area of 7,000 square meters. As a solo traveller and first timer in Geneva, the museum hit my to do list because of my interest in Art and having a free entry 🙂
The city map collected from the hostel helped me a lot to move around geneva city. You should take bus 7 because it has a stop in the name of the museum.The museum open from Tuesday to Sunday, 10-6 pm , permanent exhibitions have free admission..
The museum is divided into 5 levels and level 0 has the reception where you will get the guidebook of the museum. At level 0 is the applied arts and temporary exhibitions . The armoury room displays arms from the late middle ages to the 18th century and presents artefacts from the Escalade episode of 1602 when the duke of Savoy attempted to seize the city of Geneva.
In the same level, the historic rooms immerse the viewer in a lifelike reconstitution of the past, illustrating the 20th Century predilection for presenting furniture and artwork in their original context.
The 1st floor gallery contains the election of 800 musical instruments and silverware collection from 18-19th century. However , when I visited the 1st floor gallery was closed due to the transfer of some collection to a new place. So, I directly headed towards level 2 which displays the fine arts. The most famous paining and the centre piece of the museum is ‘ The miraculous draught of fishes(1444) by Konard Witz.
Monographic groups of first rate importance by Genevan and Swiss artists-leotard, Hodler, Valloton or those who has a special links to Geneva-Corot, Bram van Velde, also punctuate the display.
The museum has the largest Egyptian antiquities collection is Switzerland. It is kept in the Level 1 in archaeology section. Here also kept are the Italiote funerary vases collection from the Greek colonies of Southern Italy and Roman sculpted portraits.
Geneva being one of the expensive cities in Europe, it is quite a treat to visit a museum like this for free. I left at around 5 o’clock, as I was alone , it was raining and my legs were aching from trying to see the whole museum in 3 hours. If you are interested in history and arts, it is a sure stop for you while visiting geneva. The museum do have a nice cafeteria if you want to spend a day here exploring the past.
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Another place to visit when we get to Geneva!
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I think u ll like it. Good collection and nice schematics..
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Take bus 7
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These photographs are simply breathtaking.
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Thank you JC, I am happy that you like it
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Wonderful photos! We’re going to Switzerland for a few days in May flying into Geneva after the visiting family in the UK. Have passed through Geneva before but apart from 1 night many years ago have never stopped off. Don’t think we’ll have time on this visit either. Good that you had a free pass – as you say Switzerland is very expensive!
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It is free for all, except temporary exhibitions. How long you have in geneva? Do have a boat ride, and if have time go to mont blanc, the latter I didn’t do, but would like to go someday
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That’s good value 🙂 Thanks for the tips 🙂 We’re not staying in Geneva itself but going on through to the Vevey/Montreux area. Have 3 nights there – hoping to go up to Martigny and over to Chamonix but I know the train line is being renovated so not sure if it’s practical. We were there a few years ago (in Montreux) and it was rather cloudy so couldn’t even see Mont Blanc from Lake Leman! This time we definitely plan a boat ride and we’ll see how we feel once we get there too! After that we head on up to Spiez on Lake Thun in the Oberland area and finally a couple of nights in Lucerne. Love Lucerne and excited to visit again after a few years!
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Do visit lausanne, it is beautiful
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