Opened over 10 years ago, the Musée du Fumeur was first and foremost a café and bookshop, but also a cigar-tasting venue. Even before that, 7 rue Pache was a butcher's shop. It has come a long way since then, and is now a museum in its own right. Here, we learn that smoking has something sacred about it, a shamanic dimension common to Indians and Hindus.
Smoking, then, is first and foremost a spiritual ritual.
The tour, organized into 26 points from A to Z, goes back to the origins of the act itself: smoking. In addition to tobacco, the evolution of the use of incense, hemp and opium is also covered. Their psychotropic virtues and their place in society are represented by lithographs, engravings and advertisements... The photographic cabinet also features 180 portraits of celebrities smoking: Audrey Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, Hitchcock, Che Guevara, Gainsbourg... Two other areas, the Galerie and the peintures sur tabac (tobacco paintings), feature a temporary exhibition of caricatures of smokers, and Fréderic Degain's work on whole or recomposed leaves, a tribute to Mayan culture.
This little museum, both unusual and fun, is not an incitement to smoke, but rather an explanation of the evolution of the practice, particularly in France. The Musée du Fumeur is preparing for a second youth, as it is due to offer new activities in the autumn, returning to its first love: tasting.
Location
Smoking Museum
7, rue Pache
75011 Paris 11
