Guimet Museum

The Guimet Museum stands out for its grand rotunda, a central hall that often greets visitors with a vast collection of Khmer statues beneath a high, light-filled dome. Founded by the industrialist Émile Guimet, the institution began in eighteen seventy-nine as a museum of religions in Lyon before moving to this site on Place d’Iéna in eighteen eighty-nine. Guimet was a dedicated traveler whose fascination with global spiritual traditions drove him to amass thousands of artifacts during his expeditions through Egypt, India, China, and Japan.