page_title: Musée dauphinois
section_title: History of the museum
hierarchical_section_title: Musée dauphinois / History of the museum
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Théâtre Sainte Marie d'en bas (1647) - Grenoble
context_page_description: The Musée dauphinois, located in Grenoble, is dedicated to the ethnography, archaeology, history and society of the former province of the Dauphiné. Situated above the neighbourhood of Saint-Laurent in the listed historic monument of Sainte-Marie d’en-Haut, the Musée dauphinois is an accredited “Musée de France“ and takes part in the Long Night of Museums.
  Founded in 1906, the Musée dauphinois was the third museum in Grenoble, after the Musée-bibliotèque and the Musée d’histoire naturelle. The museum has occupied two different historical 17th century buildings: the former chapel of Sainte-Marie d’en-Bas from 1906-1968 and the present site of the former convent of Sainte-Marie d’en-Haut.
  Each year its temporary exhibition spaces welcome a wide range of exhibitions, creating an important centre for regional culture in Grenoble. In 2004, a temporary exhibition exploring the treasures of Ancient Egypt helped the museum to surpass the important milestone of 100,000 annual visitors.
context_section_description: On the 13th of October 1905 the regional newspaper, La Dépêche dauphinoise, reported that a commission had met to study the creation of a history museum in Grenoble. On the 27th of January 1906, a report written by the municipal architect was sent to the mayor of Grenoble, Charles Rivail, about construction work to establish an ethnographic museum in the chapel of Sainte-Marie d’en-Bas. Later that year, on the 14th of December, the advisory commission elected one of its 12 members, the ethnographer Hippolyte Müller, as the first curator of this museum.  The name Musée dauphinois, suggested by commission member and archivist Auguste Prudhomme, was chosen by the commission on the 25th of March 1907. Various decisions regarding the functioning and organisation of the museum, for example, the pricing, were also made. Following the deliberation of the municipal council on the 13th of April 1908, a presidential decree was signed by Armand Fallières on the 6th of April 1910 offering a provisional loan of 4,800 francs to the city of Grenoble to pay for the museum’s installation costs.
  The museum was first located in the chapel of Sainte-Marie d’en-Bas, rue Très-Cloîtres, which originally belonged to the sisters of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. In 1647, owing to the lack of space in the convent situated above the city, the sisters built a new convent and chapel on the left bank of the Isère River, naming it Sainte-Marie d’en-Bas.
  The chapel was entirely rebuilt in 1786 but then fell into disuse after the vote on the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State. It was in this chapel, engraved in 1907 with the inscription Musée dauphinois, that Hippolyte Müller gathered objects and documents related to the daily life of the inhabitants of the Alps — from its industrial heritage to its regional decorative arts, stretching from the Gallo-Roman period to the 19th century. In the summer of 1921, Müller and his counterpart at the Musée de Grenoble (Museum of Grenoble), Andry-Farcy, agreed to divide these objects between the two museums. In 1921, all small objects of architectural interest were transferred to the Musée dauphinois, with larger items such as the Gallo-Roman gravestones arriving the following year. These gravestones were displayed on a closed-off terrace, which is now a wide staircase. As an expert on local heritage, Mülller helped to build a life-sized replica of the alpine village of Saint-Véran in 1925 during the International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism in Grenoble. 
  However, faced with a growing collection, the lack of space in the museum soon became evident and, by the end of the 1940s the museum had started to consider finding larger premises. The director of the “Musées de France” (Museums of France) appealed to the then mayor, Léon Martin, to find “more dignified [space] for a city of great tourism like Grenoble”. In 1949, the site of the disused convent of Sainte-Marie-d'en-Haut on the right bank of the river was suggested as a possible location; however, the relocation project would take almost two decades to complete.
  Helped by favourable economic conditions and the upcoming 10th Winter Olympic Games in the city, the new town council, led by Hubert Dubedout, decided to relocate the museum to the much larger site of Sainte-Marie d’en-Haut in 1965.
  The 3rd of February 1968, the museum, now in the partially restored former convent, was unveiled by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux. The next day, Mayor Hubert Doubedout presented the location of the museum to General Charles de Gaulle using a giant model of the city.
  After its first exhibition, which welcomed 36,000 visitors, the museum was closed for a few months in order to finish the restoration of the building. Finally, on the 27th of June 1970 and with the convent fully restored, the museum opened for a second time. Under its new curator Jean-Pierre Laurent during the 1970s, visitors to the museum discovered an exhibition pace that was designed personally by the curator.
  In 1989, the museum acquired a new 2,
caption: The chapel of Sainte-Marie d'en-Bas, former site of the Musée dauphinois
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FX35", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2009:10:05 10:42:26", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "496", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "10132", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6713", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:10:05 10:42:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:10:05 10:42:26", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Fine weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "22/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9970", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "25", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard"}