The origin of the Musée des Instruments à vent at la Couture Boussey, a unique case of self-preservation of tradition and craftsmanship - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2019

The origin of the Musée des Instruments à vent at la Couture Boussey, a unique case of self-preservation of tradition and craftsmanship

Résumé

Labeled "Museum of France", the Musée des instruments à vent at La Couture-Boussey (Normandy) is located in an historically active woodwinds production area and retains an important collection of instruments made from the 17th century to the present day. It also houses archives, tools and machines witnesses of a prestigious past, that retrace the economic, artistic and social history of the village and its surroundings. Founded in 1888, the museum celebrated its 130th anniversary in 2018. The foundation was one of the first actions of a union created the previous year by the ouvriers finisseurs in instruments de musique of La Couture-Boussey who, victims of wage cuts, feared the disappearance of their profession. Its creation was an unicum, the founders wanted to transmit the material product of their expertise – the instruments – as well as the techniques and the savoir faire (tools, drawings, parts of instruments), as emphasized by the first name of the Museum: Musée d'enseignement professionnel (Museum of Vocational Education). Since 1888, the museum has experienced periods of high activity and periods of inertia: the collection in 1982 was finally transferred to the current premises and was labelled national collection of France in 2003. The digitization of most of the instruments of the collection took place in 2007 and the information is available on several public databases (for instance MIMO). On the other hand, various sectors of the collection (tools, archives, machines) are still waiting to be exploited and fully cataloged. Nowadays most of the manufactures and artisans are no longer active, on the territory many of the buildings still survive, witness of the glorious past and there is an unaccounted number of instruments and archives that are dispersed in private houses as well as a few private collections. The immaterial knowledge kept by the elderlies that worked for the local makers and manufacturers is slowly disappearing, making the mission of the museum even more compelling as depository of the local wind-instruments making culture.
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Dates et versions

hal-04029760 , version 1 (15-03-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04029760 , version 1

Citer

Emanuele Marconi. The origin of the Musée des Instruments à vent at la Couture Boussey, a unique case of self-preservation of tradition and craftsmanship. Musical Instrument Collectors and Collections, Galpin Society, Sep 2019, London, France. ⟨hal-04029760⟩
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