The Musée Ariana occupies a grand neo-Baroque villa adjacent to the Palais des Nations, donated to the city by its builder, the art collector Gustave Revilliod, who also bequeathed it his entire collection. The museum now holds around 25,000 objects tracing the history of ceramics and glass from antiquity to the present day — Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, and European examples are all represented, along with a good collection of Swiss and Geneva faience.
The building is worth a visit in its own right: a late 19th-century fantasy in pale stone, with a distinctive glass dome and an interior staircase of theatrical excess. The museum is free to enter and comparatively quiet — much of the tourist traffic in this part of the city is absorbed by the UN. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.