Name of Object:

A Room in the Egyptian Museum

Name in original language:

Una Sala del Museo Egizio

Location:

Turin, Italy

Holding Institution:

Soprintendenza Archeologia del Piemonte: Authority for the Archaeological Heritage of Piedmont

 About MIBACT | Authority for the Archaeological Heritage of Piedmont, Turin

Holding Institution (original language):

Soprintendenza Archeologia del Piemonte

Date of Object:

1852 (Original engraving)

Inventory Number:

S.N. (Neg. Prof. Curto)

Dimensions:

Print: 24 x 24 cm; engraving: 14,6 x 22,4 cm

Description:

The drawing shows the arrangement of Drovetti's collection inside the right wing of the building of the Academy of Sciences in 1852. The wall decoration mimics a wall of green stone tiles. The organisation of this room remained roughly unchanged until 2006. The institution of the Egyptian Museum in Turin marked an essential stage in the rediscovery of Egypt and followed the interpretation of hieroglyphics by Champollion. In 1824 King Carlo Felice of Savoy bought the collection of Egyptian antiquities gathered together by Bernardino Drovetti, general consul of France in Egypt from 1803 to 1830, in order to give to the Piedmontese capital an archaeological museum able to compete with all the other museums around Europe. The Drovetti’s collection was donated to the University Museum together with other Egyptian monuments already part of Savoy's collection. This collection already included more than five thousand pieces including statues (one of them is the famous statue of Rameses II), steles, offering tables, wood and bronze objects, mummies, furniture, jewellery, other materials and a significant number of papyri. A catalogue of the collection was made by Champollion around the 1820s.

Archival or Bibliographical Reference:

A. Peyrot, Turin in the ages. Views and plants, ceremonies in the incision from '500 to '800, Turin 1965, volume II, Photo 542/16, p.778

Additional Copyright Information:

Copyright image: Museo Egizio di Torino - Archivi Soprintendenza Archeologia del Piemonte.

Citation of this web page:

Marcella Trapani "A Room in the Egyptian Museum" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;it;171;en

Prepared by: Marcella Trapani
Copyedited by: Anne Dowell

MWNF Working Number: IT2 029