Paris (AFP)

Record attendance, openings until midnight ... "Tutankhamun, the Treasury of the Pharaoh" closed its doors Sunday night, officially becoming the most visited exhibition in history in France.

In six months, 1,423,170 visitors flocked to admire part of the treasure of the young Pharaoh, who reigned more than 3,300 years ago.

Egyptomania is always a recipe. The exhibition swept away the previous attendance record held by "Tutankhamun and his time", dubbed the "exhibition of the century". It had attracted more than 1.24 million visitors in 1967 in Paris.

The image had marked the Parisians: large files forming on the avenue Winston-Churchill and the Champs-Elysees to come and discover 45 objects of the famous tomb at the Petit Palais.

Faced with success - up to 12,000 people a day - this exhibition-event, inaugurated by the Minister of Culture at the time, André Malraux, had been extended by two and a half months.

There are no massive queues around La Villette, in the north-east of Paris, for the 2019 exhibition, presented by the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry and IMG, in collaboration with the Louvre. the statue of Amon protecting Tutankhamun, visible at the entrance.

- Rush of Parisians -

An online reservation system for choosing a time slot was set up. 150,000 tickets had been sold on the internet before the opening.

A system also used for the other "exhibition-blockbuster" of the year in Paris, "Leonardo da Vinci" at the Louvre (in October), with reservations only online and open since mid-June.

If Tutankhamun has the habit of draining crowds, as the Impressionists (Shchukin collection at the Vuitton Foundation, 1.2 million visitors in 2016-2017, Barnes collection in Orsay in 1993, 1.14 million visitors), this success confirms the dynamism of northeastern Paris, an area less known to tourists, says Françoise Benhamou, economist of culture.

The exhibition attracted a large majority of French audiences (93.41%), half of whom came from Ile-de-France. "There is a real difference with the attendance at the Louvre, 3/4 foreign," she says.

Another notable fact: the success of the exhibition despite high prices, with tickets to 24 euros for an adult (no reduction on weekends) and 18 euros for a child from 4 to 14 years (weekdays). 100,000 tickets have been offered by La Villette to school groups, leisure centers and social fields.

- World Tour -

Gold jewels, engravings, sculptures, ritual objects ... "Tutankhamun, the Treasury of the Pharaoh" had all of an event and an announced success, presenting 150 objects found in 1922 in the tomb of the young pharaoh, 60 of which were coming out of Egypt for the first time, even though the famous funerary mask did not make the trip.

The exhibition was born from the gradual transfer of the museum's collections from Tahrir Square in Cairo to the future Giza National Museum, near the Pyramids, which allowed a number of objects to exceptionally leave Egypt.

Part of Cairo for Los Angeles (700,000 visitors) before moving to Paris, she then went to London (at the Saatchi Gallery in November) then to other major cities for a tour of ten cities to be completed in 2024.

The treasure of the young pharaoh will then join the new Egyptian Grand Museum in Cairo, alongside the comprehensive fund dedicated to Tutankhamun.

The success of the exhibition in France gives hope for the arrival of "millions of lovers of Egypt and its civilization (to) discover the essence of the treasure of Tutankhamun in Cairo and visit the museums and marvelous sites of Egypt" said Khaled El-Anany, the Minister of Antiquities, quoted by the organizers.

© 2019 AFP