| Lapidary Museum | |
| Map Type: | France Vaucluse |
| Location: | Avignon, France |
| Type: | Archaeological museum |
The Lapidary Museum is a lapidarium-museum in Avignon, France. It has housed the classical Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Gallo-Roman sculptures and objects of the Calvet Museum since the 1980s. They are both run by the Fondation Calvet. As well as exhibiting the museum's core collections, it also mounts summer temporary exhibitions (e.g. "La diffusion des cultes égyptiens et alexandrins dans le monde romain à L'Égypte copte et l'Égypte musulmane" and "Le laraire d'Esprit Calvet"), conferences and networking events, particularly for scholars.[1]
The museum is based at 27 rue de la République in a 17th-century building, previously the chapel of the city's Jesuit College. It was begun in 1616, initially to plans by Étienne Martelange and then by François de Royers de la Valfenière from 1620 onwards. de la Valfenière raised the walls as far as the nave's main cornice.[2] The building was made a monument historique on 21 June 1928.
As well as Etruria, classical Greece and Rome and the Gallo-Roman era, the collections cover Gallic and Early Christian art.[3] The highlight of the prehistoric collections is the 'Lauris-Puyvert Stela' in ologenic limestone.[4] The Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Gallic objects include vases and lamps as well as bas-reliefs and statues, along with a number of Etruscan funerary monuments.