Background on Réunion des Musées Nationaux (RMN)

RMN was founded in 1895 to raise and administer the funds required for the acquisition of works of art by national collections. At its creation, the RMN was made up of only four bodies: the Louvre, the Château de Versailles, the Musée du Luxembourg and the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Musée des Antiquités nationales).

Today, the RMN works with 34 institutions: 32 museums and two exhibition venues. The museums range from the immense, with the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Château de Versailles, through medium-sized institutions such as the Musée Picasso, Paris, the Musée de la Renaissance at the Château d’Ecouen and the Musée Message Biblique Marc Chagall, Nice to small entities such as the Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris, and the Musée Magnin, Dijon. The exhibition venues are the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais and the Palais de la Porte Dorée. Twenty-two of these 34 institutions are located in Paris or the surrounding area.

[ Top ]

RMN Replicas

Its origin : Set up in 1794, just two years after the Louvre opened, RMN’s moulding workshop’s original task was to provide museums and art schools with good reproductions of antique sculptures. Since then, the workshop’s collection totals over 5,000 moulds of works in the Louvre and other French or foreign museums - a representative picture of the history of world sculpture from its origins to modern times!

High fidelity to the originals : The workshop has inherited a time-honored tradition of quality reproduction. The imprint is always taken from the original, or by digital process for the more fragile pieces. The model is then used to make a plaster, bronze, resin or terracotta reproduction. The piece is finished in a special workshop to obtain the same patina as the original, which may be in marble, polychrome wood, glazed pottery, etc.

Mark of quality : All RMN replicas bear the RMN stamp and each has a certificate of origin and guarantee. Come and view a wide and ever-changing range of RMN replicas in ARTICA.

Black Panther (Ref RF 006151) François Pompon , well known sculptor of animals who exalted lyricism in light by polished surfaces with an economy of detail. Chinese Horse (Ref RK 007959) Like ancient Greece, ancient China was fascinated by the horse. As early as the Chang Dynasty (17th -11th century B.C.), it accompanied sovereigns to their funerary palaces. It was then buried in numbers in order to create a procession . Fragment of a Face of Amon Re (Ref RE 000184). This replica made of resin is the reproduction of a Amon Ré fragment face, Egypt 1295-1069 B.C. Motherhood (Ref RF 005956). Sculptress Chana Orloff (1888-1968) .created her first major works by 1912, with the stylized forms, fluid line, and simplified volumes that were to be her signature style.

RMN Chalcographs

Its origin : The Louvre’s Engraving Studio has a national collection of over 14,000 engraved plates. It was founded in 1797, when several collections of copper plates dating from the Ancien Regime were put together. The royal collection and that of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture went back to the 17th century.

As rare as limited editions : RMN produces prints (or chalcographs) pulled from the original copper plates, at the pace of only 20 pieces per selected plate each time. And ARTICA team handpicks the chalcographs literally fresh from the press, before they are snapped up.

[ Top ]

RMN Images

ARTICA also carries a wide selection of images produced by RMN. These include postcards, posters, folded cards, bookmarks, magnets, calendars, diaries, puzzles and others imprinted with works of the master artists.

The Poppies (Ref IA 200243) This is the reproduction of the work The Poppies painted in 1873 by Claude Monet (1840-1926). The original belongs to the Orsay Museum collections. Paul Cézanne Notecards with Envelopes (Ref IP300034) This folder contents 10 different notecards relating to works from Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

[ Top ]

RMN Gifts

Amongst RMN gift range are wine globlets, cups, paper weights, etc that make very nice and thoughtful gifts.

Spice Bowl (Ref CU 500060). This unusual and elegant object standing on four zoomorphic legs, has a very attractive decorative effect in the 18th century, the three compartments would have held nutmeg, cloves and pepper. Wedding Cup with Hearts, from Lille (Ref CU 500143). The most interesting feature of this cup, which has a simple shape, is its engraved motifs of two interlaced hearts, birds and flowers, a traditional pattern used to decorate cups offered as wedding gifts. Frequently mentioned in archive documents, wedding cups are a symbol of fidelity rather than wealth.

[ Top ]