MÈNE Édouard (EN)

Dr Mène

Edmé Édouard Mène, known as Édouard Mène, or Dr Mène, was born in Vaugirard (a commune that is now part of Paris), in the Passage Saint-Charles, on 22 September 1833. He was the son of Maurice Mène (1794–unknown)—a medical doctor who graduated from the Faculty of Paris with a specialisation in neurology—and Augustine Flore Mène, née Petit (1803–unknown) who married in 1826 (AN (French National Archives), Léonore database, article no. L1823050). He completed his secondary education at the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand (Collin, V., 1913, p. 1). Then, like his father before him, he joined the Faculty of Medicine de Paris, where he studied with the professors Natalis Guillot (birth and death dates unknown), Édouard Monneret (1810–1868), Adolphe Lenoir (1802–1860), Pierre-Paul Broca (1824–1880), Aristide Verneuil (1823–1895), and Jean Civiale (1792–1867) (Collin, V., 1913, p. 1; Curinier, C.-E., 1899–1919, p. 119). He graduated as a medical doctor on 15 January 1859 (AN (French National Archives), Léonore database, article no. L1823050) with a thesis entitled ’De la névralgie fémoro-poplitée et de son traitement par la cautérisation transcurrente’ (Mène, E., 1859). Over the course of the same year, he submitted a thesis about migraines to the Académie des Sciences de Paris (Collin, V., 1913, p. 1), which was published in 1860in his work on Nouvelles Recherches sur les causes de la surdité, les bourdonnements, les étourdissements et la migraine, leur traitements (Mène, M., and E., 1860, 8^th edition), which he wrote with his father Dr Maurice Mène.

During his career as a medical doctor, he held many posts, such as theatre doctor at the Odéon between 1859 and 1888, a licensed doctor at the Bureau de Bienfaisance and Maternity Inspector of the 7^th arrondissement of Paris between 1862 and 1880, and a doctor of the Société des Secours Mutuels in the district of Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin from 1862 to 1879. The post he held for most of his life, from 1873 until his death in 1912, was that of Head Doctor in the hospital of Frères-de-Saint-Jean-de-Dieu (AN (French National Archives), Léonore database, article no. L18-23-050; Curinier, C.-E., 1899–1919, p. 119). During the Siege of Paris, he was the doctor in charge of medical visits during the voluntary enlistment at the Mairie of the 7^th arrondissement of Paris, as well as a civil doctor requisitioned by the war administration for the military ambulance of the Institution des Jeunes Aveugles. For these services he was awarded the 1870 medal and made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1871 at the proposition of the Minister of War, and was promoted to the rank of Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1892 (AN (French National Archives), Léonore database, article no. L18-23-050). These were far from being his only decorations, as he was awarded a silver medal by the French Ministry of Agriculture following his participation in the fight against the cholera epidemic in 1865–1866, as well as the titles of Officier de l’Instruction Publique, Officier du Mérite Agricole, and Commandeur des Ordres de Saint-Grégoire-le-Grand et du Saint-Sépulcre (AN (French National Archives), Léonore database, article no. L18-23-050; Collin, V., 1913, p. 1).

Having become a widower after the death of ‘Fanny’, Agathe Mène, née Agathe Denise Peuchot (1833–date unknown), whom he married on 6 May 1888 and who bore him no children, he died on 15 October 1912 and was buried in the Cemetery of Montparnasse (AN (French National Archives), Léonore database, article no. L1823050; Marcignac, ‘Nécrologie’, Excelsior, 19 October 1912).

A scholar with a passion for Asia: from China to Japan

Alongside his professional medical activities, Édouard Mène was a scholar who had a passion for Asian civilisations, and more specifically Far-Eastern ones. Hence, the journalist Émile Berr (1855–1923) described him in the columns of Le Figaro on 4 November 1911 with the following words: ‘once upon a time there was a very learned doctor, who was very involved with his patients and who had two secret passions: one for flowers, and another for Chinese objects. He focused on these passions in his leisure time away from his medical career, that is every evening and morning for two or three hours before commencing a very busy day’s work’ (Berr, E., ‘Un japonisant’, Le Figaro, 4 November 1911). Indeed, it was both through his work on botany and his curiosity for Chinese artefacts that Dr Mène primarily seemed to be interested in Asia. This was evident at the conference he gave in 1869 during the thirteenth annual session of the Société d’Acclimatation, with the principal themes of the cultivation of tea, cotton, tobacco, and bamboo in China, as well as the various associated objects and uses (Jacob, F., L’Étendard, 22 February 1869). This example shows that the cultural interest he had in Asia was combined with a scientific interest in agriculture and botany. He published several works on these themes in the Bulletin de la Société d’Acclimatation, in particular ‘Des Usages du Bambou en Chine’ (1869) and ‘Des Produits Végétaux de Chine et en Particulier du Bambou’ (1869). Following the 1878 exhibition of vegetable products in Japan, he published, from 1880 to 1885, as ever in the same Bulletin de la Société d’Acclimatation, a series entitled ‘Des productions végétales du Japon’ (‘The vegetable products of Japan’), which earned him two gold medals from the very same Société and marked the beginning of his passion—which soon became virtually exclusive—for Japan (Curinier, C.-E., 1899–1919, p.119; Berr, E., ‘Un japonisant’, Le Figaro, 4 November 1911). He complemented his work with the publication in the Mémoires de la Société des Études Japonaises of studies about ‘Le bamboo au Chine et au Japon’ (‘Bamboo in China and Japan’, 1881) and ‘le Chrysanthème dans l’art japonais’ (‘The chrysanthemum in Japanese art’, 1885), which further attests to the plural nature—both cultural and scientific—of Édouard Mène’s passion for Far-Eastern civilisations and, in particular, the Japanese civilisation, whose language he was familiar with and about which he was truly passionate. This global interest in Japanese culture and art is evident in the variety of themes that featured in the articles he published in The Weekly Critical Review, such as ‘Les laques du Japon’ (‘Japanese lacquers’, Mène, E., 1903), ‘L'art de la sculpture au Japon’ (‘The art of sculpture in Japan’, Mène, E., 1903–1904), and ‘La céramique au Japon’ (‘Ceramics in Japan’, Mène, E., 1904). Hence, according to the statement by the journalist Émile Berr, ‘after loving this prodigious country as a naturalist and gardener [editor’s note: Japan], he loved it as an artist and a lover of history. And soon the chinoiseries were abandoned. The scholar’s curiosity and tenderness gradually turned away from Japanese flowers to focus on Japanese objects’ (Berr, E., ‘Un japonisant’, Le Figaro, 4 November 1911).

One of the first connoisseurs of Japanese art

Édouard Mène’s collection of Asian art and objects, which was constantly enriched until his death in 1912, was begun in 1868 (Tressan, Marquis de, ‘Preface’, Catalogue des armures japonaises …, Hôtel Drouot, 21–26 April 1913), dating from the beginning of the Meiji era, 明治時代, which marked the end of Japan’s policy of voluntary isolation and consequently the development of commerce and trade with Europe. Hence, according to his confrère in the Association Amicale Franco-Chinoise Victor Collin de Plancy (1853–1922), he was a veritable precursor who ‘managed to discern the attractive qualities that later inspired all enlightened connoisseurs of East-Asian objects that arrived in Europe at the time, while people of taste, with a few exceptions, did not appreciate their value’ (Collin, V., 1913, pp. 3–4). Although he only began to truly collect Japanese objets d’art in 1878 (Berr, E., ‘Un japonisant’, Le Figaro, 4 November 1911), preferring above all those from China, he was nevertheless one of the first connoisseurs of Japanese art, and during the forty years during which Édouard Mène devoted himself to compiling the objects in his collection, he frequented the most active Parisian dealers and importers, such as Adolphe Worch (1843–1915), with whom he struck up friendships (Tressan, Marquis de, ‘Préface’, Catalogue des armures japonaises…, Hôtel Drouot, 21–26 April 1913). He also frequented the milieu of collectors and connoisseurs, and he enjoyed discussing the subject, as attested by his friend the Marquis Georges de Tressan (1877–1914), who described him as an ‘excellent and extremely agreeable guide’ in the field of Far-Eastern art and declared: ‘he liked to bring together the followers of the Japanese cause and appreciated them for their goodwill’ (Tressan, Marquis de, ‘Preface’, Catalogue des armures japonaises …, Hôtel Drouot, 21–26 April 1913). This commitment to the study of Japanese art is evident in the posts he occupied within the Société Franco-Japonaise and the Société des Études Japonaises, Chinoises et Indochinoises, of which he was respectively Vice-President and President and through which he frequented the Parisian circle of the connoisseurs of Japanese art. Incidentally, his penchant for Japan did not prevent him from taking an interest in other Far-Eastern civilisations, as attested by his post as Vice-President of the Commission de Corée at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, as well as his membership of the Association Franco-Chinoise in Paris. He was awarded titles and decorations for his activities, which attest to his interest in and link with Asia, as he was made a Commander of the Order of the Sacred Treasure 瑞宝章 of Japan, the Imperial Order of the Double Dragon 雙龍 寶 星 of China, and Grand Officer of the Order of the Eight Trigrams of Korea (AN (French national archives), Léonore database, article no. L1823050; Collin, V., 1913, p. 4).

Dr Mène’s Collection

A study of the catalogue of the first sale of his collection at the Hôtel Drouot in April 1913 gives an idea of the extent and composition of Édouard Mène’s collection. Hence, of the 1,343 lots presented, there were thirty-four suits of armour, thirty-one pieces of armour, fifty-eight helmets and battle headpieces, twenty armour masks, fifty-six sabres and daggers, sixty-four various weapons, 517 sword guards, 101 kozuka, 小柄, fifty-seven fuchi-kashira, 縁-頭, seventeen kojiri, 鐺, kogai, 笄, and kurigata, 栗形, twenty-two lots of menuki, 目貫, and tsuka, 柄, thirty-nine lots of iron objects, twenty-one cloisonné objects, 135 inrō印籠and writing desks, 113 various lacquer objects, thirty-five horn and hardstone objects, and twenty-three items of furniture and fabrics. The latter included some Chinese cloisonné objects—with the addition of several lots of carpets and altar fronts that were also Chinese—seven were Oriental weapons (daggers and a Persian knife), and one of them was composed of a Korean casket (Charpentier, G., Lair-Dubreuil, F., Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913). Although this sale was just a part of Édouard Mène’s collection (which resulted in a second sale of 1,101 lots held in May 1913), it was representative, as a result of the distribution of the types of objects and their origins, of the composition of the entire collection. Hence, most of Édouard Mène’s collection was devoted to Japan, and more specifically Japanese weapons and armour, although he also owned a collection of inrō, 印籠, and various objects made from iron, cloisonné enamel, and lacquer (perfume boxes, cabinets, sake bottles, and metal water bottles), horn, and hardstone (in particular, jade and rock crystal), as well as furniture and fabrics, some of which was Chinese, Korean, Buddhist, and Persian, (Charpentier, G., Lair-Dubreuil, F., Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913).

The most remarkable objects partly featured in the report of the Bulletin de la Société Franco-Japonaise of the two sales of Édouard Mène’s collection held at the Hôtel Drouot in 1913 (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 127–128). Hence, aside from the Japanese weapons and armour detailed below, Dr Édouard Mène owned okimono, 置き物, in his collection in the form of iron animal figurines, including a hammered and chased raven and a rooster executed in repoussé and chased by Myochin Shikibu Munesuke (active: 1688–1735) (lot nos. 978 and 979, first sale, April 1913; Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913). He also owned various Chinese objects from the Ming epoch, including a baluster vase, a bottle, and a dish, all three of which were in cloisonné enamel (lot nos. 1017, 1018, and 1019, first sale, April 1913; Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913), as well as a bronze incense burner from the same epoch (lot no. 292, second sale, May 1913). The hardstone objects included a chased and openwork jade vase, as well as a Kuan Yin (Guanyin), 观音, a rock crystal Buddhist statuette (lot nos. 1,290 and 1,316, first sale, April 1913; Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913). Tyge Möller also noted the presence, amongst others, of translucent Japanese enamel objects, a gold lacquer writing box, attributed to Korin, 光琳, two aventurine lacquer travel water bottles, and a large polychrome white silk wall hanging that illustrated the history of General KuoTzu-i(lot nos. 1,034, 1,038, 1,277 and 1,336, first sale, April 1913; Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913).

The important role of Japanese weapons and armour in the collection

His collection of Japanese weapons and armour was considered major by his contemporaries, and even as ‘perhaps the richest in the world and which has no equivalent, even in Japan’ (Collin, V., 1913, p. 4). The thirty-four suits of armour owned by Édouard Mène mostly dated from the eighteenth century, but he also owned models dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They comprise, depending on the models, a breastplate, a helmet, a skirt, thigh armour, arm covers, a protective skirt, a half-mask, padded cloth, and shoulder guards. Richly decorated, depending on the models, they were made from wrought iron with repoussé work, with chased work or gold and silver damascene work, attesting to Édouard Mène’s particular interest in metalworking and craftsmanship. Sixteen of these suits of armour bear signatures that refer to the Myochin 明珍family of armourers active from the Muromachi period until the end of the Edo epoch (Charpentier, G., and Lair-Dubreuil, F., Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913, lot nos. 1–34). Georges de Tressan declared that ‘Dr Mène had established in his residence a veritable temple in honour of the Myôchin family’ (Tressan, Marquis de, Catalogue des armures japonaises …, ‘Préface’, 1913, p. 1). The others also have prestigious signatures, such as those of Nobuiye or Sastome Iyemasa (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 127–128).

In addition to these suits of armour, the collection included half-masks and other menpō面頬, as well as battle-worthy helmets, or kabuto兜, including a helmet with silver inlay fashioned by Yoshida and dating from 1673, as well as a wrought iron helmet made by Myochin Munesuke (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 127–128; Charpentier, G., Lair-Dubreuil, F., Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913, lot nos. 84 and 114). The remainder comprised various pieces of armour, breastplates, chest plates, gorgets, shoulder guards, arm covers, skirts and under-skirts, stirrups, bits, banners, and oriflammes. Amongst the types of swords and daggers, Édouard Mène owned katana刀, tachi, 太刀, wakizashi, 脇差, and tanto, 短刀. Cited in particular in the report of the first sale held at the Hôtel Drouot in April 1913 was a large battle sabre with a chased blade dating from 1596 and made by Kunishige 国重, as well as a ceremonial chased gold and copper sword (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 127–128; Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques..., 1913, lots no. 149 and no. 168). These weapons were complemented by rifles, pistols, lances, halberds, crossbows, bows, maces, and arrow heads, all dating from between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries (Charpentier, G., Lair-Dubreuil, F., Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques…, 1913).

Amongst the objects in his collection that belonged to the art of Japanese armoury, the sabre guards, or tsuba, 鍔, were in the majority, as they were believed to have numbered 5,000 to 6,000, depending on the sources (Curinier, C.-E., 1899–1919, p. 119; L’Attaque, ‘une exposition d’armes and d’armures japonaises’ (‘An exhibition of Japanese weapons and armour’), 6 November 1911; Gil Blas, ‘Les arts – au Musée Cernuschi’, 3 November 1911). Intended to protect the warrior’s hand by preventing it from sliding along the blade, sabre guards were sought after due to the richness and high quality of their decorations, which highlighted the ingeniousness of the metalwork executed by the workshop or artist who made them. Dr Édouard Mène was interested in both the aesthetic quality and the historical and documentary value of the guards he collected. According to his friend Georges de Tressan, ‘in selecting his sword guards, he was guided all at once by the quest for a historical series, the quality of the decorations, and the study of technique’ (Tressan, Marquis de, Catalogue des armures japonaises …, ‘Préface’, 1913, p. 1). He wanted to compile collection that included all of the most important signatures of their period, while demonstrating the variety and developments of sabre guards over time. Hence, amongst the fifty-one items present in the sale of April 1913 in the Hôtel Drouot, there were no less than thirty-two different styles, workshops, and families of craftsmen (Charpentier, G., Lair-Dubreuil, F., Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques.., 1913). Amongst the most significant, Dr Mène’s collection included tsuba鍔 in the namban style, 南蛮美術(16^th to 17^th centuries), famous for the finesse of their fabrication and their European inspiration. He also owned others of these produced by the workshops of the most famous families and schools of armourers, such as those of the Myochin, Kaneiye, Umetada, Goto, Shoami, Hamano, and Nara Schools. Amongst the most prestigious in the collection were two from the Kaneiye workshop (seventeenth century), including a quatrefoil iron guard—called ‘du cortège’—, several sentoku guards, one of which was chiselled in relief, representing the wind god Fūjin, fashioned by Somin, and an iron guard chiselled in relief, representing an owl, by Nara Toshimune (Möller, T., 1913, pp.127–128). Certain sabre guards in his collection were described as ‘primitive’, as they were made before the eighth century CE. Others were classified according to different workshops that were distinguished from one another by their techniques: the workshops of damascene artisans, enamellers, lacquer artisans, or inlay craftsmen, with inlaid guards of the Mukade百足type. This classification according to workshops and techniques was used in the rest of the collection of weapons and armour, and in the kozuka, 小柄 and fuchi-kashira, 縁-頭 series, where the same names of craftsmen, workshops, and styles feature (Charpentier, G., Lair-Dubreuil, F., Catalogue des armures japonaises des XVI^e, XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles, casques.., 1913).

An enlightened amateur

Édouard Mène was a collector who liked to be familiar with the details of the objects in his collection and who adopted a scientifically rigorous approach to their study, carefully retracing their history and identifying their origin, date, style, and signature. His approach to the collection was scholarly, and he was primarily interested in placing the object in its civilisational and historical context, which led him to study Japanese history and the language in great detail (Berr, E., ‘Un japonisant’, Le Figaro, 4 November 1911). Fortuné d’Andigné (1866–1935) also attested to his ‘perfect knowledge of Far-Eastern languages’, which ‘enabled him to decipher the most difficult inscriptions’ (Andigné, F. d’, ‘Une 2^ème exposition au Musée Cernuschi’, Écho de Paris, 2 November 1911). In the Bulletin de la Société Franco-Japonaise, dated April 1913, Tyge Möller (birth and death dates unknown) declared ‘One must remember that Dr Mène was always eager to compile a historical collection, in which the signature was the most valuable factor, rather than a veritable art collection, as generally understood by almost all of the collectors’ (Möller, T., April 1913, p. 128). Hence, he assembled series of objects with the aim of having a varied and representative range of names and schools, which explains the extent of his collection, described as a veritable ‘museum’ (Curinier, C.-E., 1899–1919, p. 119) in itself. This was one of the best examples of his approach to collecting the ensemble of more than 5,000 Japanese (tsuba, 鍔) sabre guards, ‘which he arranged according to centuries, artists, subjects, and captions, and whose signatures he deciphered; and he had photographic plates made of them, reproducing a large number of coats-of-arms from the princely and seigneurial families of Japan, featuring on the verso all the indications of the dates of ennoblement, places of residence, etc.’ (Curinier, C.-E., 1899–1919, p. 119). The photographic plates of these sword guards are now held in the photographic collections in the library of the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (Japon, collection du docteur Mène, Photothèque Archéologie Extrême-Orient I, 28–49, 1900–1913).

A collector in the service of knowledge

Dr Édouard Mène liked to be surrounded by his collection on a daily basis in his Parisian apartments, and readily placed six of his Japanese suits of armour in his antechamber, complemented by various sabres, swords, and bronzes, while he placed another ten suits of armour, along with many other Far-Eastern objects, in his salon, office, and dining room (AN (French national archives), MC/AND/XXIX/1872). Raymond Kœchlin (1860–1931) likened his apartment to a ‘sanctuary’ housing the collector’s ‘treasures’ (Kœchlin, R.., April 1913, p. 26). Nevertheless, he did not jealously keep his collection and discoveries to himself, but on the contrary he wished to share the content and results of his studies. To this end, he held conferences—whose subject matter was largely based on examples taken from his own collection—in the various societies he belonged to, mainly the Société Franco-Japonaise, in which he held several conferences on Japanese armour (Cordier, H., 1912, p. 661). He would even bring along articles from his collection (armour, helmets, various weapons) to his conferences to back up his words with concrete demonstrations during his presentations (‘Les conferences de la Société Franco-Japonaise – l’Art des Armures au Japon’, Le Petit Temps, 3 February 1901). These conferences were complemented by regular publications, in particular, in the Bulletin de la Société franco-japonaise, such as ’Aperçu sommaire sur les laques du Japon’ (‘A brief look at Japanese lacquers’, Mène, E., 1902–1906), ‘Des transformations successives des armures japonaises (‘The successive transformations in Japanese armour’, Mène, E., 1907), ‘Les anciennes garnitures de sabres du Japon’ (‘Ancient Japanese sword fittings, Mène, E., 1908), and ‘Les anciennes armes japonaises’ (‘Ancient Japanese weapons’, Mène, E., 1909). He also accepted to have photographs of the objects in his collection published in specialised works, such as Chefs d’oeuvre de l’art japonais by Gaston Migeon (1861–1930), and Japanische Kunstgeschichte by Oskar Münsterberg (1865–1920).

He also loaned objects to exhibitions, such as the 1889 Exposition Universelle, providing a large number of articles to the section devoted to work and the anthropological sciences (Collin, V., 1913, p. 4). In addition, he loaned objects from his collection to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs for the two exhibitions of Japanese sword guards and fittings, which were held in 1910 and 1911, as he did to the section devoted to Chinese cloisonné enamels and hardstones during the first retrospective exhibition of Chinese art held in the Musée Cernuschi between May and June 1911 (Collin, V., 1913, p. 5). Nevertheless, the most important exhibition in Dr Mène’s life as a collector was that exclusively devoted to him from November 1911 to March 1912 in the Musée Cernuschi in Paris and which constituted the first part of the second retrospective exhibition of Asian arts, with the theme of ‘Japanese weapons from Dr Mène’s Collection’. Held in close collaboration with his friend and curator of the museum, Henri d’Ardenne de Tizac (1877–1932), and with the backing of the Commission des Beaux-Arts du Conseil Municipal de Paris, represented by Fortuné d’Andigné, the exhibition enabled Dr Édouard Mène to show the general public a large portion of his collection of ancient Japanese military equipment and ironwork used in Japanese weaponry and armour, dating from the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Hence, amongst other objects, there were thirty-four suits of armour, fifty helmets—including two more ancient ones, one of which dated to the fourth century and the other from the middle of the twelfth century—, 1,200 sabre guards, and more than 400 complete sword fittings, ‘with specimens of guards made by the main artisans over successive centuries, analysed and classified in chronological order’ (AMCER, CER-EXPO1911/3, box 3). The aim of the exhibition was, in fact, to present the evolution over the centuries in the art of metalworking in the field of Japanese armoury, ‘from the sober and expressive decorations of the beginnings to the most slender and conventional forms of the end’ (Paris-Journal, 28 October 1911). Fortuné d’Andigné described the visible developments in sabre decorations presented at the exhibition: ‘Simple and severe at the beginning; at the end of the fifteenth century, they started to become truly artistic and luxurious. The finesse and elegance of the ornamentation gradually transformed into veritable silver- and goldsmithery, the summum of which was attained in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.’ (Andigné, F. d’, ‘Une 2^ème exposition dans le Musée Cernuschi’, Écho de Paris, 2 November 1911). On the day of the inauguration, on 4 November 1911, the exhibition was attended by many officials, as well as many amateurs, collectors, and dealers of Asian art, such as Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929), Victor Collin de Plancy, Théodore Duret (1838–1927), Raymond Kœchlin, Georges Marteau (1858–1916), and Adolphe Worch (Bulletin Municipal Officiel, 9 November 1911; AMCER, CER-EXPO1911/3, box 3).

The fate and posterity of Dr Mène’s collection

Although Dr Édouard Mène’s collection did not survive intact after his death, his legacy was that he enriched several of the world’s most famous museums with regard to Asian art and completed the collections of many famous collectors.

The two sales held at the Hôtel Drouot between the end of April and beginning of May 1913, following Dr Édouard Mène’s death in October 1912, resulted in the dispersion of his collection into 2,444 different lots and the sale proceeds attained 260,000 francs (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 126–128). Amongst the buyers were major cultural and museum institutions, whose presence reflected the collection’s quality and fame. Hence, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York purchased several major lots at the first sale in April 1913, including two suits of armour: an eighteenth-century suit of armour with a fabric breastplate for 1,900 francs (lot no. 4) and an iron suit of armour, chased with a dragon and cherry tree branches by Myochin Munesuke for 1,050 francs (lot no. 18; inv.13.112.4). With regard to the sabre guards, the Musée bought an iron quatrefoil guard, called ‘du cortège’, made by Kaneiye (lot no. 367; Möller, T., 1913, pp. 126–128). It also spent 12,100 francs on the famous okimono, 置き物, in the form of a raven made from hammered and chased iron by Myochin Munesuke (lot no. 978; inv. no. 13.112.20) (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 126–128). Several other objects in the New York museum collection also came from sales of Dr Édouard Mène’s Collection, including two battle helmets: one was suji-kabuto (ridged) style helmet dating from the end of the fifteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century (inv. no. 13.112.10) and a seventeenth-century namban style helmet,南蛮美術 (inv. no. 13.112.9), as well as a seventeenth-century matchlock handgun (inv. no. 13.112.11), a menpō half mask, 面頬, from the beginning of the nineteenth  century (inv. no. 13.112.17), and various fukusa, 袱紗, and (hata-jirushi flags, 旗). And the Royal Museum of the Cinquantenaire in Brussels bought a wrought iron helmet fashioned by Myochin Munesuke that imitated the valves of a shell for 480 francs (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 126–128).

This first sale also gave many private collectors the chance to enrich their own collections. Henri Vever (1854–1954) purchased two sentoku (a Japanese alloy composed of copper, tin, lead, and zinc) guards, one of which was attributed to Somin and the other to Kazutomo, for 315 francs (lot no. 574) and 300 francs (lot no. 755) respectively, along with a cloisonné enamel dish dating from the Ming era for 720 francs (lot no. 1019). And the Marquis Georges de Tressan, also known for his collection of sabre guards, bought in iron guard with translucent enamel work for 300 francs (lot no. 698), whilst François Poncetton (1875–1950) purchased an iron guard decorated in relief chasing by Nara Toshimune for 455 francs (lot no. 590), as well as a shakudō (a Japanese alloy containing copper and gold) 赤銅 openwork grapevine guard with translucent enamel decorations for 560 francs (lot no. 701). Also present were Marcel Cosson (1878–1956), who purchased an iron sabre guard with translucent enamel work, decorated with a pot and a sake spoon for 301 francs (lot no. 704), and Ernest Cognacq (1839–1928), who acquired a repoussé and chased iron rooster by Myochin Munesuke for 1,000 francs (lot no. 979), as well as a red lacquer rectangular box with inlaid daimyo horse decorations, 大名, for 470 francs (lot no. 1180). André Portier (unknown birth date–1963), the sale expert, obtained two Kang-Hi cloisonné enamel vases shaped like gourds for 1,020 francs, a large cloisonné enamel incense burner dating from the end of the eighteenth century for 4,200 francs, three Japanese translucent enamel articles for 1,060 francs (lot no. 1034), and a gold lacquer writing box, attributed to Korin for 1,050 francs (lot no. 1038) (Möller, T., 1913, pp. 126–128).

Nevertheless, not all of the objects in Dr Édouard Mène’s collection featured in the two sale catalogues, as some of them had been donated by the collector, who was ever eager to disseminate knowledge about Far-Eastern art and more specifically Japanese art. Édouard Mène made several donations and willingly donated seventy of his precious tsuba (sword guards), entrusting them to the care of the Musée d’Ennery upon its inauguration (AME, Livre des Donateurs; Collin, V., 1913, p. 5). He also donated during his lifetime some of his sabre guards to the Musée Cernuschi, while his sole legatees, in line with his wishes, made a similar donation to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs after his death (Collin, V., 1913, p. 5).