THE PRINTING WORKSHOP MUSEUM
PRINTING FORMS PART AND PARCEL OF OUR LIVES
Stock up of discoveries
We organize your transport by coach, train or plane
79€ / person
Indicated prices are with tax included.
Prices are all inclusive for little and big groups.
No stone will be left unturned, every detail will be completely explained, they know their subject like the back of their hand.
Our guides perfectly speak the languages indicated
Highlights
- An exceptional heritage, 150 machines which retrace the history of printing
- Workshops to understand the printing industry
- The exhibition on vinyls, 280 mythical sleeves
The town of Malesherbes in the Loiret department (45), near Paris, has an absolutely remarkable industrial heritage!
Discover an exceptional handmade and technical savoir-faire during a guided tour of the largest printing museum of Europe! A total immersion behind the scenes of printing and printing to share with friends, in groups or in family.
The Printing Workshop-Museum (AMI): 600 stories !
The site opened in 2018 thanks to Chantal and Jean-Paul Maury, printers for many generations in Malesherbes and members of the Artegraf association.
Concerned to safeguard and transmit an ancestrals savoir-faire, this couple has assembled for more than 20 years an extraordinary collection of machines in wood, metal, mechanical or electrical, and several exceptional pieces.
Unique in Europe, the museum recounts, chronologically, the history and industrial development of the profession from Johannes Gensfleisch (1400-1468) to the present day.
Better known under the name of Gutenberg, this genius is the inventor of the mechanical press with metallic mobile alphabetic character and the maker of the first print in Europe: the 42-line bible.
You will learn how Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso, Braque, Miro, Renoir, Manet and many other characters used the flat printing technique, called lithography, for their illustrations, posters or stories. Not to mention the personalities who have revolutionized the printing world over the centuries and changed the course of typography history.
5000 m² are devoted to exhibitions and 1000 m² of workshop-school. The guided tour allows you to understand the technicalities of this sector of activity and highlights the art of printing, publishing, image, graphics, etc.
You will be in awe of the typographic furniture! Among the incredible elements of the press collection, you will discover an 1810 Stanhope weighing 45 tons from the printing house of Honoré de Balzac, a German cylindrical stop press from 1890, the Goss rotary press from 1908 which published the magazine of Edinburgh and that of Hippolyte Marinoni (1823-1904), manufacturer of printing machines.
Apart from these fascinating equipment, you will be able to contemplate rare accessories, photographs, videos, multimedia objects, literary theaters, a huge wall newspaper recounting the history of the press, phenomenal frescoes and almanacs.
Much more than a museum, this living and magical place which welcomes artists, researchers, writers, offers visitors, young and old, educational workshops allowing a playful introduction to calligraphy, paper making, printing, drying, calendering, folding and binding as well as interactive games.
Imagine for a moment you are under the skin of a typographer reproducing gestures and techniques! Accessible to everyone, your children will love this activity, which is a real approach based on learning the trade and arousing curiosity. You even have the option to print your own book! Remember to bring a PDF file or a USB key.
Between guided tours and experiments, a visit to the museum promises you wonderful surprises as well as many human and technical discoveries.
Book this extraordinary outing that you will remember for a long time as the themes presented are so rich and diverse.
Roadmap
(Around) Departure by coach to Malesherbes, in the Loiret department in Gâtinais, for a day of discovery of the printing museum with 5,000 m2 of exhibitions and 1,000 m2 of school workshops.
Your day will begin with a guided tour of the printing house that will transport you back to 600 years of history and make you realise the extent to which the printing industry has revolutionised human life.
The visit will evoke unmissable personalities such as Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of printing in the 15th century or Balzac who spent a time in the ruin of wanting to become a printer. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso, Braque, Miro and others adopted reproduction by the technique of lithography. More recently, through the famous film “le cave se rebiffe” (1961) featuring Maurice Biraud, a brilliant engraver who finds himself drawn by Jean Gabin, and Bernard Blier, in a case of “false snooze” or rather false money!
You will discover 150 machines in all their splendour, reminiscent of the great history of printing.
Lunch on site or in the surrounding area.
Make way for action with a choice of workshops that allow each visitor to become a printer as the visit progresses.
Departure by coach to your home