The Musée national Adrien Dubouché is a national porcelain museum and one of the best ceramics collections in Europe. It holds over 12,000 pieces from ancient earthenware to contemporary studio ceramics, with particular strength in 18th and 19th-century Limoges porcelain, Sèvres, and comparable European and Asian work.
The collection is particularly good on the technical side of porcelain making — the different types of clay, the development of glaze chemistry, the kiln techniques that distinguish hard-paste from soft-paste porcelain. For visitors who come to Limoges specifically for the porcelain heritage, this museum gives the whole context before you visit any of the factory showrooms. The building is a handsome 19th-century structure near the Champ de Juillet park, and the ground floor café is decent.