Unearthing Wonders at Paris’s Musée de Minéralogie

A classic Parisian building erected in 1707 on the Left Bank has been home to one of the most interesting mineral collections in the world since the end of the 18th century. Few of the uninitiated outside of France know about it, however. Originally intended to assist mining students in their studies, the Musée de Minéralogie comprises 100,000 specimens, with some 5,000 on display for the general public.

Housed on the second floor of the School of Mines in the Vendôme Hotel and accessible through a majestic stairwell surrounded by classic frescoes, the museum opens into a main gallery with over 60 meters of elegant mid-19th-century wooden cabinets. Visitors experience the collection the same way it was set up in the 1850s.

The museum aims to understand the nature of the minerals, as well as how and where to find deposits of similar materials, and to serve as an inventory of natural resources that’s as exhaustive as possible.

A collection worth sharing

How to make this vast collection of rocks relevant to contemporary visitors — and spark larger conversations about environmental issues and the jewelry industry — is the mission that the museum’s new director has set for her institution.

Geologist Eloïse Gaillou worked at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California, before returning to her native France in 2014. An expert in opals and colored diamonds, she was the curator of the mineralogy museum before stepping up as its top manager earlier this year. Passionate about education and outreach, Gaillou has already established partnerships with L’École des Arts Joailliers, which has campuses in Paris, Dubai and Shanghai. She is also looking to create strong bridges between the museum and the French jewelry scene.

The collection she wants to open to the broader world includes “a lot of old big rocks, rough stones, gem crystals and beautiful rough diamonds from all around the world — from India, Brazil and South Africa,” she says.

One of the highlights is loose gems from former French royal collections.

“There were not pieces of jewelry, because the French crown jewels were mostly kept as loose gemstones to be reused under different kings and emperors,” explains Gaillou. “They were hiring new jewelers and making new pieces of jewelry during their reign.”

Hands-on exploration

Meteorites also draw some attention — especially the ones that visitors can touch, to their utmost surprise. “When I show this meteorite that is 4.5 billion years old, much older than the Earth, I keep touching it, and visitors look at me puzzled and ask why I am touching something that is in a museum,” she relates. “I tell them, ‘Please touch it, too!’”

Besides this hands-on approach to pieces of the moon or Mars, Gaillou would like the museum to be a conversation-starter about how we mine gems and how this connects to wider economic and ethical considerations about sourcing. The dynamic curator sees the museum’s role as a guardian of oral transmission, not just a keeper of beautiful rocks. Under her inspired direction, the understated museum is certain to become an unmissable destination for mineralogy lovers the world over.

Main Image: Mineral specimen displays at the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris. (Musée de Minéralogie)

This article is from the May-June 2024 issue of Rapaport Magazine. View other articles here.