The Brunon collection began at the end of the 19th century in the children’s bedroom of a family home at 174 rue Consolat, Marseille, where two boys, eight and five years old, kept their treasures: books, pictures, tin soldiers, uniforms and toy weapons.
The little army grew with the gifts they received. They were already very meticulous and rigorous, repainting figurines to adjust inaccuracies in the original decoration or remedy damage from previous battles.
One day in 1908, their uncle, Dr Raoul Brunon, who lived in Rouen, Normandy, sent the children a crate containing a Chassepot rifle, a Garde Nationale shako and an infantry police cap from the time of Napoleon III, an 1870 Bavarian helmet and other smaller artefacts. This was the starting point for what would become an extraordinary museum.
Raised with a veneration of their homeland, flag and army, like so many future World War I combatants, the two brothers were drawn into the fate of many in their generation.Raised with a veneration of their homeland, flag and army, like so many future World War I combatants, the two brothers were drawn into the fate of many in their generation.
They both left at the start of the conflict, motivated by the memory of the German victory of 1870. At Christmas 1914, their mother wrote to them: “The end of this year will be sad without our two sons by our side, but […] God willing, we will all see our revenge!”
Raoul fell on 23 October 1917, in the Fort Malmaison attack on the Chemin des Dames, writing in his last letter before the assault: “Providence will keep Jean, so he can do what I wanted to contribute to do,” by which he meant the future museum for which they collected souvenirs on the battlefield. This is attested in a letter from Jean to Raoul: “You collect ‘antiquities’ under enemy fire! That’s a subject that would inspire d’Esparbès to write a heroic tale!”
Jean venerated the memory of
his brother, even naming his son after him. The collection was purchased by the State in 1967 and gradually placed in Château de l’Empéri in Salon-de-Provence, restored to house it and become a national museum, a branch of Musée de l’Armée in Paris, which owns the collections. Jean Brunon died on 23 May 1982 at the age of 87, devoted to his mission and museum to the very end. His son Raoul, to whom he had the satisfaction of transmitting his vocation and learning and who founded the museum with him, was the curator until his untimely death in 1998.
“Jean Brunon was probably the greatest private collector in Europe, one of the greatest in the world,” wrote Colonel Pierre Carles, a great specialist in military history. We owe him this exceptional collection that is much more than a museum; it is a living collection, a unique introduction to history thanks to peerless innovative museography, a work of art in itself. Its quality, both artistic and didactic, bears witness to magnificent taste and a deep sense of humanity.
