France Guide
The Rhône valley
Musée Historique des Tissus
Address: 34 rue de la Charité
Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–5.30pm
Price: €6
South of place Bellecour is Lyon's best museum, the Musée Historique des Tissus housed in the eighteenth-century former town palace of the Duke of Villeroy. It doesn't quite live up to its claim to cover the history of decorative cloth through the ages, but it does have brilliant collections from certain periods, notably third-century Greek-influenced and sixth-century Coptic tapestries, woven silk and painted linen from Egypt as well as silks from Baghdad and carpets from Iran, Turkey, India and China. The stuff produced in Lyon itself reflects the luxurious nature of the silk trade: seventeenth- to nineteenth-century hangings and chair covers, including hangings from Marie-Antoinette's bedroom at Versailles, from Empress Josephine's room at Fontainebleau and from the palaces of Catherine the Great of Russia. There are also some lovely twentieth-century pieces – including Sonia Delaunay's Tissus Simultanés – and couture creations from Worth to Mariano Fortuny, Paco Rabanne and Christian Lacroix. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs next door (Tues– Sun 10am– noon & 2–5.30pm; same ticket as Musée des Tissus) displays faïence, porcelain, furniture and a couple of eighteenth-century rooms removed from old houses in the Presqu'Île, plus a collection of superb modern silverware by noted architects, including Richard Meier and Zaha Hadid.