VISITING MUSEUM

Housed in buildings dating from the 15th and 17th centuries, this museum allows visitors to discover the artistic heritage of the Visitation Order. A permanent exhibition, unique in France, composed of more than 12,000 objects of art from the 15th century to the present day, from 90 European communities, presents the history and specificities of the Institute. The twelve rooms of the museum present more than a thousand devotional objects, which specialists agree are extraordinary, including ceremonial objects, statuary, reliquaries and rolled paper reliquaries. You will also see many small paintings for the oratories and the nuns' rooms, called cells. Depending on the fashion and the period, they are painted on paper, copper or even marble. They are often copies of paintings by well-known masters, thanks to the images that were taken from them. Sometimes they are prints bought by the nuns themselves but embellished with watercolour or cut out and hollowed out by hand, intended to be offered or placed in the office books.
500 works of silverware on display illustrate the arts of goldsmithing, enamelling and jewellery over the centuries. This collection highlights the evolution of fashion and the decorative arts behind the forms and decorations of the objects presented. Travel through the centuries and styles, from the luxuriance of the Louis XIII period to the clean lines of modern art, passing through baroque, archaeological inspiration and Art Nouveau. The museum keeps, in a database, all the information collected on the objects placed in deposit, allowing to make available their research and the data relative to the history of the Visitation order. This database, whose name is Philothée, an acronym for Heritage, History, Inventory of the Order and Visitandine Themes, contains, among other information, the biographical files of more than 14,500 people, including 12,000 Visitandines, their names thus emerging from oblivion or from dusty archives. This archiving work also concerns the benefactors, the chaplains and each of the superiors, but also the bishoprics that welcomed these communities. For each of the 356 communities of the order, even the ephemeral ones, the dates and places of foundation and transfer are listed, as well as the complete list of superiors, that is to say more than 21,000 elections. It is an inexhaustible source of information for researchers and enthusiasts alike.