African Museum

Africa on the Ile d'Aix: the creator of this museum, Baron Napoléon Gourgaud (1881-1944), was a keen hunter in Africa, with a passion for ethnography and the natural sciences. The museum houses numerous collections of trophies, sculptures and ethnographic objects that the Baron brought back from his many expeditions to southern and eastern Africa, as well as animal dioramas of African fauna created by the London taxidermist Rowland Ward.
Last admission 45 minutes before each closing

Prices: twin ticket (African Museum + Napoleonic Museum) The ticket can be collected from the Napoleonic Museum.
When the African Museum is closed, admission to the Napoleonic Museum is at a reduced rate.

Free admission on the first Sunday of the month.

Virtual exhibition: In the footsteps of Bonaparte's dromedary
It may not be as famous as the Fayoume, the superb silver-grey stallion that the Emperor rode at Austerlitz, but the dromedary on the Ile d'Aix enjoys a fine reputation.
Was it really Bonaparte's mount during the Syrian campaign and was it brought back alive from Egypt in 1801, when the Army of the East was repatriated to France? It is certain that it has always been known as the ‘Emperor's’ horse, and this attribution gives it a special distinction.
To mark the reopening of the Musée Africain after a year's work, it was important to delve into the history of this animal and to investigate. It will take us from the desert sands where it was born to the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where it spent a golden retirement under the Consulate and the Empire. After his death, he ended his career at the zoology laboratory of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, where his remains were naturalised before being deposited on the island of Aix in 1933. Baron Gourgaud, who considered it a historical relic, made it the centrepiece of his museum.

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