Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro

The museum you are approaching occupies a site with a layered history of global encounters. Opened in eighteen eighty-two within the grand Palais du Trocadéro, this institution was the first in Paris to gather material from across every continent under one roof. Its galleries displayed objects brought back by scientific missions alongside artifacts acquired during the expansion of the French colonial empire. The museum aimed to document all human activity, famously arranging displays of Breton peasants from rural France directly alongside exhibits from Africa and the Americas to frame them within a single comparative perspective.