The Liais museum s history
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The first museum in Cherbourg opened its doors in 1832 in one of the city hall’s rooms. The collections of the curiosity cabinet given by the collector and amateur archaeologist François-Henri Duchevreuil, are exhibited next to the remarkable series of paintings offered by Thomas-Henry and next to the many objects donated to the City by the members of the Academic Society. Other important donations completed little by little this rich and eclectic collection: the former Cherbourg sub-prefect, doctor Louis-Auguste Bonnissent, gave an Egyptian stele of the 12th dynasty, the marine officers, François Laurens de Choisy and Anne-François Troude, offered the precious Greek crater from Melos and the Egyptian sarcophagus and its mummy evaluated by Champollion, while Augustin Asselin, former mayor of Cherbourg and director of the Academic Society, gave Gallo-Roman objects collected in 1829 during the dig on the Mielles of Tourlaville site. The objects and specimen brought back by travellers, colonial administrators, marine officers or militaries from exotic countries enrich progressively the antique and natural
history cabinet still housed in the city hall. At the dawn of the 20th century, what is pompously called an ethnographical and natural history museum is relegated in the attic of the city hall and looks more like a giant bric-a-brac, according to the press of the time. But, in 1900, Emmanuel Liais, astronomer, explorer, hydrograph and meteorologist, former director of the astronomical observatory of Rio de Janeiro, bequeaths his goods to the Cherbourg city, where he had been mayor for 10 years. Among those goods, his house and his botanical park. This providential legacy allows the city to move the collections of the ethnographical and natural history museum. Since 1910, the presentation of the collections have barely changed… Today still, the museum keeps the spirit of the curiosity cabinets of yonder, giving privilege to the accumulation of all kinds of objects. This deliberate choice makes this museum, to the eyes of ethnologists, a museum in a museum.
Practical information
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Liais Museum Abbaye Street - 50100 Cherbourg-Octeville Tel. 00 332 33 53 51 61 www.ville-cherbourg.fr <
Opening times
Photos : JM Enault, Ville de Cherbourg-Octeville - Imprimé sur papier recyclé
A curiosity cabinet in Cherbourg-Octeville
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1 May-30 September: open daily except Sunday morning and Monday morning, from 10am-12am and 2pm-6pm. 1st October-30th April: open Wednesday through Sunday, 2pm-6pm. st
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Free entrance <
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Ground floor: natural history in all its forms
First floor: journey through the cultures of the world
The ground floor of the Liais Museum is entirely dedicated to the natural history collections: stuffed mammals, birds, butterflies, insects… everyone can find something to his liking!
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T he mineral and animal reign
3 Welcome to the underwater world 5
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The museum’s first room is widely opened to the mineral reign: a rich collection of geology and regional palaeontology, of a great scientific interest, covers both walls of the room. From the Precambrian trilobites to the small dinosaur bones, the room is filled with witnesses of the history of the evolution of life on earth. The animal world is also well represented with birds from all the continents: a South American paradise bird, a red cardinal from Virginia, an African couroucou, a toucan from Guiana… But also mammals with an American hairy ape, Malagasy lemurs, armadillos… And, for the story, the two stuffed seals are called Leon and Arthur and used to live in the town’s public garden…
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2 R eptiles and birds The second room is dedicated to reptiles and birds. You can see Hortense, giant Aldabra turtle, other former resident of the town’s public garden, next to the not so nice alligator turtle, huge American fresh water turtle. The collection counts water turtles (imbricated turtle), land turtles (starred turtle) and fresh water turtles (matamata). The crocodiles on the wall, next to the very 19th century kitsch bird bushes, give the room a very “curiosity cabinet” look, while the snakes, quietly rolled up in their jars, wait for their ration of formalin. The bright feathers of the parrots, toucans, kingfishers, hummingbirds… contrast with the quieter colours of the birds of this coast, puffins, seagulls or terns…
Kindly welcomed by the powerful jaws of sharks and by the rostrum of saw-fishes, the visitor discovers in the oceanographical room the beautiful collection of sea invertebrates and fishes from the biological Tatihou station, annex of the National natural history museum at the end of the 19th century. Jellyfishes float in their formalin filled jars, annelids extend their silks, dried up flying gurnards are hammered to the floors of the showcases, while a mole shark over a hundred years old watches over the room with a grin. The bony left-overs of cetacean washed up on the Cotentin Peninsula shores, dolphins, globicephal, hyperoodon and other rorquals, complete this collection.
4 B utterflies and other beetles The hall, dedicated to arthropods, allows the visitor to admire beautiful butterflies, phasmes in the shape of tweeds or leaves, series of shiny beetles and hairy spiders, insects and arachnids. The great diversity in all their shapes and sizes show the richness of the living.
The first floor is dedicated to ethnographical and archaeological collections. Chinese hangings, Eskimo kayak, African masks, bronze axes… will take you through space and time.
6 America on the landing Set up on the landing, the American collections welcome the visitor to the first floor: South America is represented by a pre-Columbian divinity, a few Peruvian vases and the equipment of the Argentine gaucho and his horse. For North America, the Eskimo seal hunter, with all his tools collected in 1836, clothes, weapons, and above all a very rare kayak on its sled, has the place of honour.
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7 Oceania The Oceania room is filled with precious collections put together in part by Henri Jouan, famous oceanologist, who was curator of the museum from 1885 to 1900. Kanak masks, a tabou sculpture from the Marquesas Islands depicting a pig’s head, models of pirogues, fist and throw weapons, jewels and unusual objects…: the collection is very rich.
9 Asia
First floor
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8 Welcome to Africa! The journey continues with the African room where weapons, masks and music instruments are exhibited next to Neolithic flints from Mauritania. Characteristic of France’s colonial past, this room presents the battling with former colonies.
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5 A room for temporary exhibitions The pedagogical room of the Liais museum often welcomes small naturalist artist exhibitions (photographers, draughtsmen…) or file exhibitions on natural heritage.
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Back to the past
The archaeology rooms show the Cherbourg Scholar Societies’ activities. At the head of different archaeological digs or informed of accidental archaeological discoveries, their members used to place their findings in the natural history and antique cabinet. Bronze axes, cut flints, polished stones and bones illustrate the prehistory and the protohistory of the Cotentin Peninsula.
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A mummy in the museum
8 History of archaeology is also found in the Egyptian room. This room shows the craze for this country after the napoleon campaigns. A mummy and its sarcophagus, identified by Champollion himself, a 12th dynasty notable’s funeral stele, oushebtis, vases… allow the museum’s collection to compete with those of national museums. Emmanuel
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The Asian room, with its particular atmosphere, its pier glass mirrors and its golden 12 candles centre light, is filled with all sorts of Chinese ornaments: mandrake roots sculpted in grotesque characters, great hostel taken from a pagoda, antique Chinese temple, weapons taken in Canton by the courageous counter-admiral d’Aboville during the second opium war, rain costumes and Japanese Buddha heads, statue fragments from Angkor-Vât… A collection typical of the 19th century collectors’ tastes.
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