Château d'Écouen

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château d'Écouen is a sixteenth-century château located in the Val-d'Oise that has housed the Musée national de la Renaissance since 1977. The building belongs to the Grande Chancellerie of the Légion d'honneur. The museum is under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. Since 2005, the museum's director has been Thierry Crépin-Leblond, conservateur général du patrimoine. Over the centuries, a succession of notable artists contributed to making the Château d'Écouen an imposing monument: the architect Jean Bullant, the sculptor Jean Goujon, the potter and enamelist Bernard Palissy, the ceramicist Masséot Abaquesne, and the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. It displays French collections from the Renaissance period across all artistic fields: tapestries, arms, sculptures, stained glass, ceramics, furniture, goldsmiths' work, paintings… In France, it is the only museum entirely dedicated to the Renaissance. According to the Comité d'expansion économique du Val-d'Oise, the Château d'Écouen is one of the department's leading tourist sites in terms of annual visitor numbers (in 2008, it was even the most visited site in the Val-d'Oise). It is located 19 km north of Paris and 15 km from Roissy airport.