by Leandro Varison
The musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac preserves an important set of objects obtained in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries in the current territory of Canada and the United States. These objects were part of the so-called “royal collections” – pieces belonging to the aristocracy and the church. After the French Revolution and the subsequent confiscation of nobility properties, they were integrated into French national institutions. This is an exceptional collection for the knowledge of Native Peoples living in these regions, as well as for better understanding their relations with Europeans.
We have implemented an interdisciplinary approach for the study and the dissemination of this exceptional set: the CROYAN Project – the French Royal Collections from North America. It combines studies on written and pictorial sources of the time, material analysis of the objects, conservation-restoration interventions and collaboration with Native American and First Nations specialists. Our aims are to shed new light on the objects preserved in France, on the value and function attributed to them in the past and today, and to ensure its transmission to future generations.
To learn more about the CROYAN Project and the French Royal Collections from North America, we invite you to visit our website https://croyan.quaibranly.fr and share your insights with us.