Hippolyte Müller

Hippolyte Müller (22 November 1865 – 23 September 1933) was a French ethnographer and the first curator of the Musée dauphinois (Dauphinois Museum) in Grenoble.

A jeweller by trade, Müller was fascinated by the prehistoric era. In 1879, he became an apprentice jeweller in Grenoble, and qualified two years later. Located along the Route des Grandes Alpes, the Col de Lautaret was renowned for its alpine tourism, and the museum was partly funded by the Touring Club de France. The museum presented reconstructions of alpine interiors filled with everyday objects from the region. Despite its success, the museum closed shortly after Müller’s death.

The International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism

The International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism took place in Grenoble in 1925. As part of the Alpine Village exhibition, Müller helped to build a life-sized replica of the church and two houses from the village of Saint-Véran in the Hautes-Alpes. Müller also sourced traditional alpine furniture from the region to decorate the interiors. At the time of his death, the Musée dauphinois held 20,000 objects in its collections. Among his archives, Müller left an un-finished novel in which a ship-wrecked sailor experimented, like Müller, with prehistoric techniques in order to survive.

Müller’s research, despite being related to the Dauphiné, was not bound by borders, and therefore is not restricted to the region.