The Musée des Arts Forains (Museum of Carnival Arts), located in an old wine-storage facility, is a collection of carnival-related attractions and beautifully restored old amusement park rides. It is a private museum created by Jean Paul Favand, an actor and antiques dealer. His antiques shop was dedicated to theater, cinema and funfair objects in Les Halles in the 1970s. For 30 years, Jean Paul Favand has been gathering and restoring his collection of fairground works of art. Today this collection is considered to be one of the most extensive in its category. The museum opened to the public in 1996 and contains a variety of objects dating from between 1850-1950. Because it is a private museum, admission is by appointment only. You must be with a scheduled group or visit during certain times of the year (December 26 to January 6 or Patrimony Days, 2 days in September), when admission is open to everyone. My husband and I were able to visit the museum with a group of 20 people from Switzerland within a week of our requesting a tour. The museum is composed of three thematic rooms (each of about 2000 square meters):
Le Théâtre du Merveilleux (The Theater of Marvels), where you can view elaborate and ornate exhibits from world fairs or play antique board games;
Le Musée des Arts Forains (The Carnival Arts Museum), where you can ride a wooden horse or a bicycle merry-go-round or take part in the Parisian Waiter Race;
Les Salons Vénitiens (The Venetian Rooms), where you can see an Italian opera-based show, performed by costumed automatons, or go for a ride on a gondola merry-go-round.
The entrance to the museum on the Avenue des Terroirs
The group from Switzerland, with whom we visited the museum, waiting for the tour to begin
Our wild-haired docent, whose eccentric appearance fit right in with the ambiance of the museum.
The piazza between buildings, where chandeliers hang from the branches of trees. Rails go down the center of the piazza, reminders of the area's history as wine warehouses.
On the piazza, an arm holding a candlestick juts out from the brick wall.
A horse caught midway on the stone wall between the piazza and the inside of the museum
All of the lighting in these three venues is very subdued, almost dream-like, especially in the Theater of Marvels. The exhibits are fantastical and surrealistic, which is what the museum’s creator meant them to be. Jean-Paul Favand said, describing the Theater of Marvels: “This is the place of stories, myths, legends, clichés, archetypes … in short, everything that speaks to our subconscious. No explanatory panel, I don’t want visitors to intellectualize about what they are looking at.” When his hopes for a State-funded museum didn‘t work out--maybe fairground art doesn’t get its due-- Jean Paul Favand set up a private museum which subsists by hosting special events. The entire space is available for gala dinners, receptions, conventions and conferences and can accommodate as many as 4,000 guests for an event. He has on-site workshops and employs eight full-time artisans who research, repair, renovate and hand-paint exhibits for future use in the museum.
A close-up of the elephant’s “burden”
An elephant carrying a castle on its back was used in antiquity in Europe to symbolize strength. (I don’t know if this is the real symbolism, but it seems to fit here.)
A woman with a tambourine--the gypsy Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
During a reception, the circular area around the sculpture becomes a cocktail bar.
The elephant from the opposite side, with the tambourine lady reflected in the mirror on the elephant’s back
The Game of the Unicorn, an astrological raffle with panels of earth elements and the zodiac
An elephant from the Paris colonial exhibition of 1931.
Expositions displaying native people, their homes and artifacts from the French colonies were very popular in France in the early 1900s.
Japanese billiards with a mural of a child clutching a lion’s mane in the background
An elephant from the Paris colonial exhibition of 1931.
Expositions displaying native people, their homes and artifacts from the French colonies were very popular in France in the early 1900s.
A dancer in a niche between areas of the exhibits
A Dutch spinning top game, “Toptafel”
The idea is to spin a top into the game where it whirls around the game surface and picks up points, depending on its path.
A unicorn/man with a Yamaha automatic grand piano. Remember, don’t think, just enjoy.
Scene from a Paris colonial exposition
It looks like a scene from a Greek drama, with a god in the winged-horse chariot, like a Deus ex-machina descending from the sky, to provide a happy ending to a dramatic conflict.
Figures from the Paris colonial exposition of 1931
The Greek sun god Apollo, in his horse-drawn chariot, is pictured directly above their heads.
A winged-victory woman with a wreath
Another winged-victory woman with a wreath
Entrance to the Musée des Arts Forains
Chariot suspended from the ceiling
Rider, chariot and Hooghuys organ
For generations, the Hooghuys family was active in the field of organ building. In the 1800s, they started with church organs, but afterwards switched to mechanical organs.
The Hooghuys Organ
A close-up of the player organ
Organ from the side, showing the automatic player mechanism
Wooden horses suspended from the wall all around the carrousel room
Wooden horse carrousel
Wooden horse carrousel
A boat on the carrousel, for ladies in long dresses, maybe
Spirited horse on the carrousel
Close-up of my horse
Becky on a carrousel horse
Everyone in the group jumped on a horse for a merry-go-round ride. We loved it.
Robert checking out the merry-go-round
Wooden sculpture of Ali Pasha, a Turkish general, centaur-like, with a double saddle on his back
Animals in the kiddies’ section
A howdah on a steer, used to carry wealthy passengers
Parisian Waiter Race
The waiters are all lined up on one side of the track
Players roll balls into holes, which makes the waiters advance.
The players here are intent on moving their waiter forward the fastest.
The race is in progress.
Our docent did a classic sleight-of-hand magic trick.
A prize-shooting game--dunk the fellow
A prize-shooting game--dunk the fellow
A pig seat
Close-up of a very handsome pig's face
The velocipede, or bike merry-go-round
I had never seen one of these before nor even known they existed.
A bike merry-go-round with chairs as well
Becky on a bike
Everyone pedaled furiously to make the merry-go-round go fast. It did, too.
Robert standing by
Disney and storybook characters in the background, and a swan seat in the foreground
A close-up of the ball-toss game character
Triangle ball-toss game
In the Venetian room, a gondola merry-go-round
A coach on the gondola merry-go-round
A swan on the gondola merry-go-round, and a siren in the center of the merry-go-round
An automaton opera singer singing and gesturing
The automaton opera singer on a balcony
An automaton girl singing in the rafters
Our tour lasted about 2 hours and cost 14 euros per person. Our docent was very lively and most probably very informative, but I can only assume he was interesting because the entire tour was in French. I didn’t mind not understanding most of what he said. Actually, I felt freer to take in the pageantry without having to pay attention to a lecture. The museum is about a block from the main street of Bercy Village and a short walk once you turn left on Avenue des Terroirs. The web sites are: www.arts-forains.com and www.pavillons-de-bercy.com After the tour we had lunch in a restaurant in Bercy Village and then spent the afternoon walking around the Parc de Bercy, a nice way to spend the day in a place far from the usual tourist destinations.
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