MIRABILIA LYON

Scène des métiers de l’excellence

The Fourvière Museum will be hosting Noir Impérial, powered by Mirabilia Lyon, from
11 to 23 February 2025.

The exhibition will bring together around thirty craftsmen to celebrate this ‘Imperial Black’,
a dyeing invention, but also a mythical, innovative colour that changed the chemical industry in the 19th century, especially the silk industry.

It was this ‘Noir Impérial’ that made the Gillet family such a great industrial dynasty
dynasty that contributed to the growth of the city of Lyon and its region from 1834 to 1976.
François Gillet was born in Bully, the cradle of the family, a village located between the Monts du Lyonnais and the Beaujolais. After his years as an apprentice in a dye works, he went on to study chemistry at the Ecole de la Martinière in Lyon.

The aim of this exhibition is therefore to celebrate the fruitful encounter between scientific creation in the mastery of materials, and artistic creation transcending the latter to project it into the excellence of the crafts of the hand.
The ‘Imperial Black’ will be showcased through a range of creative media: straw marquetry, glass, ceramics, featherwork, rope-making, silk, jewellery, wood, jewellery, paper design, metal design and textiles.

The exhibition will be accompanied by meetings and discussions.

The story of the Gillet family continues with this exhibition, written in the inspiring ink ‘Noir Impérial’ and embodied by a wash by Gao Xingjian, painter and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000.

Françoise Souchaud
Founder and President of Mirabilia Lyon