The Barbier-Mueller Collection, the most beautiful private collection of African and Oceanic art in the world, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a one-off exhibition of its rarest masterpieces at the Jacquemart-André Museum.

This is the very first time these 150 exceptional works have been brought together. Strikingly beautiful and powerful, the exhibition features a remarkable range of large sculpted faces and figures that bear a variety of enigmatic expressions. The majority of the exhibits, which include the 12th-century Nigerian piece The Horseman’s Sceptre, are the only artworks of their kind in the world today.

These sculptures are a testament to the creative virtuosity and the technical mastery of the populations of Africa and Oceania from the ninth century onwards, and also reveal the path taken by three generations of avid collectors.