Located on the site of the old battery Esnotz, Frank A. Perret Museum, overlooking the sea, was opened in 1933 by the will of the American amateur of volcanoes, Frank Arvold Perret (see his statue by Henri Marie-Rose at the entrance to the town), who had promised to give to the city after he died in 1943.
A new building replaced the former in 1969. A single room contains numerous remnants of the disaster, showcasing the brutality of the phenomenon and describing how everyday life came to a halt on May 8, 1902, at 8:00 a.m.
The horror is embodied in a collection of very ordinary objects bearing the marks of the disaster, whose surreal deformations struck the imagination of European artists.
Brassaï and Picasso were sensitive to these melted glass and these compressed objects that they had copies of. André Malraux, in his way, stopped there too.
You can also see rice petrified, a set of glasses melted, or the bell of the Cathedral at the time, completely flattened. In addition, the photos show the city before and after the eruption.
