The Musée historique is one of the three museums of Haguenau, France. It was established in 1900 and inaugurated in 1905, when Haguenau was a German town and part of Alsace-Lorraine. In spite of its name, it is as much an art museum as a museum dedicated to History.
The museum was founded by the mayor, Xavier Nessel, who was also a keen amateur archaeologist. The building was initially designed to house the municipal collections, the municipal archive and the municipal library.
Apart from artefacts relating to the history of the town, including its Jewish community, the museum owns a rich collection of archaeological finds from the Neolithic, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Gallo-Roman period. It also displays a number of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque artworks from religious and secular buildings from the town and its surroundings; in many cases, those buildings themselves (such as Frederick Barbarossa's castle in Haguenau) have long disappeared. The museum also owns a collection of Strasbourg faience by the Hannong Family and a collection of modern art, including Art Nouveau glassware, and paintings.
The ethnographic and folk art collections relating to Alsace were moved to the Musée alsacien nearby in 1972.
References:The Château du Lude is one of the many great châteaux of the Loire Valley in France. Le Lude is the most northerly château of the Loire Valley and one of the last important historic castles in France, still inhabited by the same family for the last 260 years. The château is testimony to four centuries of French architecture, as a stronghold transformed into an elegant house during the Renaissance and the 18th century. The monument is located in the valley of Le Loir. Its gardens have evolved throughout the centuries.