The story
The Musée de Dieppe lives inside the town's castle, a stone fortress on the cliff above the harbour and the long pebble beach, begun in the 14th century. Its most unusual treasure is ivory. In the 17th and 18th centuries Dieppe was one of Europe's main centres of ivory carving, fed by tusks brought in through its port, and the museum keeps nearly 2,000 pieces, from model ships and religious figures to fans, combs and boxes.
When the railway reached the coast in the 19th century, painters followed it. Camille Pissarro came in the summers of 1901 and 1902 to paint the port and the church of Saint-Jacques, and his view of the outer harbour in afternoon sun hangs here. Renoir stayed nearby with the Bérard family, his patrons, and the museum also shows seascapes by Eugène Boudin. Elsewhere in the castle are a room of prints by Georges Braque, who worked for years in nearby Varengeville, and a salon for the composer Camille Saint-Saëns, where his Pleyel piano stands.
