In my personal quest to visit every last museum in Paris (fail), I went to the Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature last year. I am not normally a fan of hunting, but I think that man -and woman-was meant to be an omnivore and that the world has become very hypocritical about it’s food. How many children these days realise or even care where their hamburger started life?

This Museum has an incredibly ‘personal’ feel to it. It’s quite new, having been created by the Francois and Jaqueline Sommer Foundation in 1964 and is housed in the Hotel Guénégaud - a mid 1600s building which has had a major face lift in the past few years. Because this is a privately funded institution, it has had the freedom to create a very individual layout and design beyond it's doors.

The artist Saint Clair Cemin was commissioned to design chandeliers, door handles and banisters in keeping with the theme of the museum and indeed, these are what first strikes the visitor. Cast in bronze, they take the form of plants, antlers and other aspects of the hunt setting the scene for the rest of the museum. Walking up the stairs holding the scaly banister sends a shiver down the spine. Cemin also cast bronze panels showing many aspects of the hunt–heads, shotguns, birds-dreamlike or nighmarish depending on your perceptions.

The museum is set out as a series of cabinets, each dedicated to one or two aspects of the hunt. The Cabinet Rubens, with it’s spooky feathered ceiling,

the Cabinet de la Lincorne, with it’s curiosities. The overall feel is that of a Victorian collector’s house, all creaky floorboards and ticking clocks. Yet this museum has much modern art too. Jeff Koons’ ‘Puppy’ is here, and many other pieces relevant to the museum theme. It has an installation room on the ground floor which was, at the time of my visit, quite frightening, showing Tania Mouraud’s ‘Roaming’-a dramatic, noisy black and white depiction of violence, death and dying.

I really didn’t expect to find much to my taste in this museum, only wanting to add it to my ‘collection’, but I was surprised and amazed to find so much to be excited about there. I will return-soon.