Collections of museums in France
A «museum of France», within the meaning of the French Heritage Code, is above all a «permanent collection composed of goods whose conservation and presentation are of public interest and organized for the knowledge, education and pleasure of the public».
> The life of collections
Guaranteeing the protection of public collections, which have the status of national treasures, is at the heart of the action of the State services. They also oversee the enrichment, circulation and dissemination of the collections, while the inventory and the regular proofing make it possible to better know them, and the digital, to disseminate them differently.
> Discover the collections
In a museum, only a selection of preserved objects can be presented to the public. In order to make better known the diversity of the collections they preserve, a large number of museums in France and internationally put them online and share their knowledge. Discover these catalogues or virtual exhibitions, listed by the French Museum Service.
> Mona Lisa, collective catalogue of collections of museums in France
Joconde is a national collective catalogue, offered by the French Museum Service. More than 300 museums in France are participating in the event, making available to all audiences more than 600,000 descriptive records of objects on POP, an open heritage platform.
> Extra-western collections held in museums in France
Many museums in France preserve collections belonging to «non-Western» cultures. These collections concern all types of museums: museums of art, ethnography, decorative arts, musical instruments... Natural history museums also preserve and present these collections. There is some difficulty in giving an exact definition of the domain. It comes from the diversity of the geographical origins of objects. It also results from the very history of these collections.