Bargoin Museum
The Bargoin Museum in Clermont-Ferrand, France, opened in 1903. It is named after Jean-Baptiste Bargoin, a local industrialist who left money to create the museum.
The building, designed by Joseph Dionnet, has a marble-relief façade by P. Gray and iron railings by Bernardin. It sits at the intersection of Ballainvilliers Street and Lafayette Boulevard, near the rectorate and Jardin Henri-Lecoq.
Originally built to display fine art, the museum later focused on archaeology. After the art collections moved to the Roger-Quilliot Museum, Bargoin expanded its archaeological displays and, on the second floor, now houses the Textile Arts collection. It is part of Clermont Auvergne Métropole.
The archaeology collection mainly comes from excavations around Clermont-Ferrand and the Puy-de-Dôme region, plus Roman, Etruscan and Greek pieces from local collectors. Highlights include the Durif shelter lithics (Magdalenian), the Early Neolithic “Cheix girl” skeleton, the Bronze Age Manson deposit, and Gallo-Roman finds.
A monumental Bronze foot found in 2006 on the site of the former Clermont bus station is one of the museum’s notable items. Roman finds include pieces from the temple of Mercury at the summit of the Puy de Dôme. The basement houses the Chamalières Source des Roches ex-voto collection, with about 10,000 wooden ex-votos and a lead tablet important for Gaulish studies.
The upper floors host the textile collection, spanning pieces from Central Asia to the Americas, from the 18th to the 21st century. These textiles are rotated for display due to fragility. Since 2012, Bargoin co-produces exhibitions for the Festival international des textiles extraordinaires (FITE), with an international edition in odd-numbered years. The museum welcomed about 17,891 visitors in 2019. In 2016, the façade was painted with chalk by ENDtoEND graffiti artists.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:16 (CET).