Acquisitions

The collections of the Archery and Valois Museum keep expanding thanks to the acquisitions of the Friends Association, gifts from private collectors or deposits from other institutions.

The museum has the label Museum of France and is thus submitted by law to the scientific control of the State, therefore all the acquisitions projects are not feasible. All of them have to be examined by a scientific commission of the Regional Direction for Cultural Affairs (DRAC) which gives an assessment.

If the acquisition is deemed coherent with the Scientific and Cultural Project of the museum and is an insightful addition to the collections, the commission issues a favorable assessment. The object can then be written on the museum’s inventory and enter the public French collections inalienably and imprescriptibly.

But if the assessment is against the acquisition, the object is not written on the inventory and thus does not enter the public collections. Similarly, it cannot benefit from any financial support from the State for conservation.

The different types of acquisition for a museum

A museum has different ways to expand its collections.

Purchase

An objet can be bought from a private individual, a professional dealer or a public sale. In the last case, as a Museum of France, the museum can be given by the State the possibility of exercising a right to preemption. The Archery and Valois Museum doesn’t have a budget specifically dedicated to acquisitions and can only purchase thanks to the support of the Friends Association. Indeed, the association buys the artworks and then donates them to the museum. Several artworks are purchased each year.

Gift

Gifts come from collectors, clubs, archery companies, individuals or firms. A personal bond between the donator and the museum often motivates this generous act. As is the case with all acquisitions, gifts are also submitted to the approval of the scientific acquisition commission of the DRAC. The Archery and Valois Museum has been lucky to receive numerous gifts, mostly in the field of archery, that have been the biggest source of expansion of the museum’s collections.

Deposits

A deposit is the equivalent of a long-term loan, often for several years. The deposited object still legally belongs to the institution that deposits the object but is exhibited in another institution. The vast majority of the museum’s sacred art collections are deposits from Valois communes. Regarding the archery collections, the museum benefited from two important deposits from the Museum of Franco-American cooperation, château of Blérancourt and the Army Museum.