The Musée des Arts Forains preserves fairground rides, games, and mechanical theatre inside Bercy’s former Lheureux wine cellars. Its collection turns a working warehouse district into a stage for the popular arts, linking the neighborhood’s river and rail trade with shared entertainment.
Quick facts
The Musée des Arts Forains settled in the former Chais Lheureux wine cellars in Bercy in 1996.
The museum’s history page says wine barrels arrived in Bercy by boat on the Seine and were moved to the cellars by rail; surviving rails remain on the site.
A carousel described by the museum dates to around 1900 and combines twelve Limonaire galloping horses with eight standing horses from the German Friedrich Heyn workshop.
Get directions to Musée des Arts Forains. Confirm the visitor entrance and current access with the venue before travelling.
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Look down as you enter the Pavillons de Bercy: the rails running through the old warehouse street are more than decoration. Wine arrived by boat on the Seine, then moved on wagons toward the Bercy cellars. The Musée des Arts Forains settled here in 1996, in the Chais Lheureux, so a collection devoted to public amusements now occupies buildings shaped by the business that once made this district festive.
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