Musée du
Compagnonnage
de Tours

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  1. Musée du compagnonnage
  2. The guilds
  3. The masterly hand
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The Masterly Hand

  • Men and trades
  • Professional improvement
  • The masterpiece
Our collections
  • Wood
  • Stone
  • Metal
  • Leather and textiles
  • Food
  • Tools of the trade
See also...
  • History
  • The masterly hand
  • The reigning spirit

Wood

Compagnons of wood trades include carpenters, joiners, cabinet makers, wheelwrights, cooper-stavers, clog makers, woodturners and basket makers. The variety of wood and its multiple uses  gave rise to very different works: frameworks, doors and windows, furniture, wheels  and carriages, cask wine and large barrels, clogs, shoes and baskets. Their reception masterpieces and great masterpieces are exhibited in the museum of Compagnonnage.

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Stone

Compagnons stone cutters have maintained a reputation for excellence thanks to their knowledge in draughtsmanship and to their prestigious constructions. Stonemasons joined them with the development of reinforced concrete. To the stone sector, plasterers and roofers can be added because they work with slate, lay roof tiles, etc., even if their activity is sometimes common with the one of carpenters.

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Metal

Compagnonnages associated with metal include blacksmiths, mechanics, locksmiths, metalworkers, farriers, panel beaters, boilermakers, plumbers and zinc workers. The variety of metals and alloys (iron, steel, copper, brass, lead, zinc, bronze) allow them to make works of many forms.

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Leather and textiles

This sector of activity includes different compagnonnages of trades that industry and mechanization have partly dismantled, including those of the ropers, the weavers, the hatters, the dyers, the tailors, the cloth-shearers, the tanners-leather curriers, the blanchers-chamoiseurs (tawers). Today, the shoemakers-bootmakers, the saddlers, the leather craftsmen and the upholsterers are still represented.

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Food

Catering professions are represented since the 19th century with the compagnons bakers (1811). Cooks joined them later (1900), pastry cooks, confectioners and pork butchers. Only works in sugar paste (icing sugar, water, gelatine and lemon juice) or in pasta dough can be kept well and can therefore be displayed.

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Tools of the trade

Tools are a part of the compagnon’s environment. The museum associates them to other objects which evoke every society of trades or every theme.

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NEWSLETTER
Musée du
Compagnonnage
de Tours

8 rue Nationale
37000 Tours
Tél. 02 47 21 62 20

  • Home
  • The guilds
    • History
    • The masterly hand
    • The reigning spirit
  • Practical museum
    • Opening and admission
    • Groups
    • Library
    • Agenda
    • Actualités
    • Photo gallery
  • Young visitors
    • Families
    • Schoolchildren
  • Genealogy
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