Museum of Walloon Life
Collections
100,000 items illustrate our collection and represent the Fund of The Museum of Walloon Life!
1.The Objects
Roughly 100,000 items illustrating a whole variety of subjects, such as craftsmanship and tools, toys, clothes and fashion accessories, industrial objects, ornaments and pieces of furniture, objects illustrating Walloon folklore (events, brotherhoods and various societies), business, crockery, household equipment, beliefs, teaching, recreation and travel... nearly all the fields of activity in Wallonia are covered!
Deserving special attention are the collection of Max Elskamp and his gnomonic-related objects, the collection of vehicles, signs, farming items and medals. Special mention should be made of the Museum of Walloon Life's puppet theatre, a folklore venue that continues to be vibrant within the museum. A collection of nigh-one 600 puppets, one or two sets and accessories – all of these represent an amazing heritage.
2.The Archives
The Museum of Walloon Life's large collection of general archives comprises all kinds of items in hard copy format or similar (written or printed materials) other than books (but countless brochures and several issues of periodicals), “loose”, framed or brought together in folders. This includes posters, lithographies, bills, postcards, prospectuses and other ephemeria and archives. They are arranged in seven rooms covering three floors in the Chamart house as well as in theAnsMuseum reserves, and classified according to eight different formats.
The collection is available to researchers via the Documentation Centre, whose staff are the only ones authorised to use the paper files...
3.The Multimedia service
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The Museum of Walloon Life Collection
Over 100,000 negatives from the late 19th century until the present day. Glass plates (50%), paper films, celluloid, compact discs. Reference should be made to the Gustave Marissiaux collection of photographs on the theme of work in and around the mining environment and the “Surveys of theMuseum of Walloon Life”. Starting in the 1920s, and conducted on miscellaneous subjects, these surveys (filmed or photographic) were sometimes accompanied by detailed publications, with the first one appearing in 1924.
Films: 356 copies.
News stories/pictures: 70 series about ethnography subjects and 43 videocassettes.
Miscellaneous sound reports: songs and interviews in dialect…
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Province of Liege Collection
Desarcy-Robyns collection: several million pictures about all facets ofLiegelife from the 1950s until the late 1970s.
Studio 9 collection: several thousand pictures commissioned from this studio, particularly for advertising purposes for companies in the Liege region.
4.The Library of Dialects in Wallonia (BDW)
5.The History of the Walloon Movement Collection (FHMW)
