Frederic Mistral was born in 1830 in Maillane, a small village north of Arles at the foot of the Alpilles hills, between the Rhone and Durance rivers. His family were rich landowners and he grew up on his father’s farm (a Provençal mas). After finishing his schooling in Aix-en-Provence, he came home to his “mas” and decided never to leave the land where he was born and that he was to use as the landscape of his poems.

In 1896 this Provençal poet created the Arlaten Museum to house the ethnographical collections that had been generously offered by generations of the inhabitants of Provence. With the sum received in 1904 for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he was able to move his museum to the former Laval-Castellane palace. Costumes, furniture, tools, objects related to religious beliefs or superstitions create a décor typical of Provençal life in the 19th century.