The Blue Man

1900

0:001 of 43

Musée du quai Branly

Paris

The art of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, in a building wrapped in a living wall of plants. Jean Nouvel designed it, and the collection runs past a million objects.

Play 43 works from this collection on your TV, phone or tablet with Momentable Art TV.

Play Collection

What to see

L'émancipation à la Réunion - Sarda Garriga - Le 20-10-1848

Collections

The museum contains the collections of the now-closed and the ethnographic department of the, plus recently acquired objects. The permanent collection has 300,000 works, 700,000 photographs, 320,000 documents, 10,000 musical instruments, and 25,000 pieces of textile or clothing. The main collections area displays about 3500 objects, rotating 500 each year. The museum presents both permanent exhibitions and large temporary exhibits that change every six months. It also offers thematic exhibits featuring masks and tapa cloth from Oceania, costumes from Asia, and musical instruments and textiles from Africa.

What can be returned, and who decides

The museum's African collections include objects taken during the colonial period, and it does not decide their fate. French national collections are inalienable, so until 2026 each return needed its own act of parliament: that is how 26 objects looted from Abomey went back to Benin in 2021, and how the Djidji Ayokwe drum went back to Cote d'Ivoire in 2026. A framework law passed on 9 May 2026, which the museum says it welcomes, now sets the terms. A claim must come from a single sovereign state, must show that the object was taken by theft, looting, coercion or by someone with no right to give it, and must fall between 20 November 1815 and 23 April 1972. Benin describes the same objects as royal treasures, and passed a 164 article heritage law of its own in October 2021 to receive them. The museum states that not everything from Africa will be returned, and that it is researching where its collections came from.