A GLIMPSE OF THE ASIAN TREASURES OF THE GUIMET MUSEUM
The Guimet Museum is a museum of Asian art located at 6, place d'Iéna in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. It has one of the largest collections of Asian art outside Asia.
The museum which was first located at Lyon in 1879 and was handed over to the state and transferred to Paris in 1885, was founded by Émile Étienne Guimet, an industrialist. Devoted to travel, Guimet was in 1876 commissioned by the minister of public instruction to study the religions of the Far East, and the museum contains many of the fruits of this expedition, including a fine collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain and many objects relating not merely to the religions of the East but also to those of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. One of its wings, the Panthéon Bouddhique, displays religious artworks.