Friday 4 July 2014

The Musée de Compagnonnage, Tours

The Musée de Compagnonnage (Trade Guilds Museum) in Tours houses a remarkable collection of master works by journeymen and master craftsmen in all sorts of fields -- carpentry, ropemaking, baking, silk weaving, harness making, boot and shoe making, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing, locksmithing, masonry and more. Some of the objects are quite fantastical, others are just beautiful examples of their craft. In addition to the master works themselves there is a myriad of documents and auxiliary artefacts which tell the story of the various guilds and how they developed and operated.

 Architectural models from the carpenters' guild.
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French Expression: Jaunâtre = yellowish; blanchâtre = whitish; verdâtre = greenish; noirâtre = blackish; rougeâtre = reddish; bleuâtre = bluish. You get these types of adjectives a lot in French field guides.

2 comments:

the fly in the web said...

Now I have to look for my copy of a book about the other 'Tour de France'...that of the compagnons...who called each other 'Pays' and each of whom had a nickname by which they were known to their companions.

Susan said...

Fly: yes I noticed they all had rather grandiose nicknames.

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