Musee De Valence Art & Archeologie

About

The Museum of Valence is situated in the historic centre of old Valence adjoining the Cathedral of Saint Apollinaire, on the city's first terrace. It offers wide panoramic views of the Valence countryside, from Vercors to the mountains of Ardeche. Officially created in 1850, it has been housed since 1911 in the former Episcopal palace, a vast private mansion with a courtyard and private gardens, which retains many traces of its secular history: a 12th-century fortified Episcopal tower, an ogival gallery, 15th- and 17th-century painted ceilings, and more. Its rich collections of more than 20,000 works offer, in a reinvented itinerary, a wide panorama of the history of mankind and the arts, from regional prehistory to contemporary art. The Archaeology section retraces the history of civilisations occupying Drome and the mid-Rhone valley from modern times back to prehistory. The art section, which brings together paintings, drawings, sculpture, and decorative arts, places a special emphasis on the theme of landscape, from its reinterpretation by contemporary artists back to its "invention" in the 16th century as an independent genre.