{{Short description|French industrialist, traveler and connoisseur (1836–1918)}} {{Expand French|topic=bio|Émile Guimet|date=October 2014}} {{Infobox person | name = Émile Guimet | image = Émile Guimet in his museum, by Ferdinand Jean Luigini, 1898.jpg | caption = ''Émile Étienne Guimet in his Museum'', by Ferdinand Jean Luigini, 1898 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = Émile Étienne Guimet | birth_date = {{birth date|1836|06|02|df=y}} | birth_place = Lyon, France | death_date = {{death date and age|1918|10|12|1836|06|02|df=y}} | death_place = Fleurieu-sur-Saône, France | alma_mater = | occupation = Industrialist, traveler and connoisseur | known_for = Founder of the Musée Guimet |notable_works = }}
'''Émile Étienne Guimet''' ({{IPA|fr|emil ɡimɛ}}; 2 June 1836{{snd}}12 October 1918)<ref>{{cite web |title=Guimet, Emile |url=https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Guimet,_Emile |website=Astrodatabank |access-date=5 December 2021}}</ref> was a French industrialist, traveler and connoisseur. An important collector of artefacts related to Oriental religions and Asian arts, Guimet is the founder of the Guimet Museum. Today, it houses one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Asian art, which includes items from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Tibet, India, and Nepal, among other countries.
== Life and career == Émile Guimet was born in Lyon and succeeded his father Jean-Baptiste Guimet in the direction of his "artificial ultramarine" factory. He also founded the Musée Guimet, which was first located at Lyon in 1879 and was handed over to the state and transferred to Paris in 1885.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Guimet, Jean Baptiste|display=Guimet, Jean Baptiste s.v.|volume=12|page=696}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://egyptartefacts.griffith.ox.ac.uk/?q=paris-mus%C3%A9e-guimet |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221053248/http://egyptartefacts.griffith.ox.ac.uk/?q=paris-mus%C3%A9e-guimet |archive-date=2016-12-21 |title=Paris, Musée Guimet {{!}} Artefacts of Excavation}}</ref>
In Lyon he also established a library and a school for Oriental languages.<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last= Mazzini |first= Joseph |author-link= |date= 3 April 2015|title= A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=6uwCg4u2M3kC |access-date= 6 March 2022 |location= Alexandria | publisher= Library of Alexandria | page= NA | isbn= 978-1-465-56286-9}}</ref> Guimet aimed at spreading knowledge of Oriental civilizations, and facilitating religious studies, through sacred images and religious objects.<ref>{{cite book |last= Edwards |first= Penny |author-link= |date= 28 February 2007|title= Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860–1945 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=J44BEAAAQBAJ |access-date= 6 March 2022 |location= Honolulu | publisher= University of Hawaii Press | page= 130 | isbn= 978-0-824-86175-9}}</ref>
Devoted to travel, he was in 1876 commissioned by the minister of public instruction to study the religions of the Far East, and the museum contains many of the fruits of this expedition, including a fine collection of Japanese and Chinese porcelain and many objects relating not merely to the religions of the East but also to those of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.<ref name="EB1911"/>
In 1945 Georges Salles, director of the Museums of France, redistributed the collections of national museum. The great collections of Asian arts of the Louvre Museum were transferred to the Musee Guimet. As a result, the Guimet became one of the greatest museums of Asian art in the world. It provides the most comprehensive panorama of Asian arts under one umbrella.<ref>{{cite book |last= Dutton |first= Lee S. |author-link= |date= 13 May 2013|title= Anthropological Resources: A Guide to Archival, Library, and Museum Collections | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xtgop0ggcc8C|access-date= 6 March 2022 |location= Oxon | publisher= Routledge | page= 382 | isbn= 978-1-134-81886-0}}</ref>
Mata Hari was his long-time mistress.
In 1880 he started publishing the ''Annales du Musee Guimet'', in which original articles appear on Oriental religions.<ref name="auto"/>
He wrote ''Lettres sur l'Algerie'' (1877) and ''Promenades japonaises'' (1880), and also some musical compositions, including a grand opera, ''Tai-Tsoung'' (1894)<ref name="EB1911" />
The Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature was created in his honour in 2017.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=MNAAG Prix littéraire|url=https://www.guimet.fr/prix-litteraire/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=}}</ref>
==References and sources== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Guimet}} Category:1836 births Category:1918 deaths Category:Businesspeople from Lyon