Guide to Museums in:


Lyon

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Paris

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Toulouse

FRANCE

PARIS MUSEUMS

The Musée du Louvre is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. The museum itself is housed in the Louvre Palace, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (district). The museum is divided into three wings: the Sully Wing to the east, which contains the Cour Carrée and the oldest parts of the Louvre; the Richelieu Wing to the north; and the Denon Wing, which borders the Seine to the south. The museums collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds. Today the Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art over it's eight departments

Painting

The painting collection has more than 6,000 works from the 13th century to 1848. early two-thirds are by French artists, and more than 1,200 are Northern European. French School painting include the early Avignon Pieta of Enguerrand Quarton; Hyacinthe Rigaud's Louis XIV; Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon; and Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Northern European works include Johannes Vermeer's The Lacemaker and The Astronomer; Caspar David Friedrich's Tree of Crows; Rembrandt's The Supper at Emmaus, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and The Slaughtered Ox. Notable Italian works of the High Renaissance collection includes Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. John the Baptist, and Madonna of the Rocks. Caravaggio is represented by The Fortune Teller and Death of the Virgin. The Louvre also displays Titian's Le Concert Champetre, The Entombment and The Crowning with Thorns.

Sculpture

The sculpture department comprises work created before 1850 that does not belong in the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman department. The museums collection of French sculpture contains Romanesque works such as the 11th century Daniel in the Lions' Den and the 12th century Virgin of Auvergne; Jean Goujon's bas-reliefs, and Germain Pilon's Descent from the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. The 17th and 18th centuries are represented by Étienne Maurice Falconet's Woman Bathing and Amour menaçant and François Anguier's obelisks. Neoclassical works includes Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1787).

For more information and enquiries regarding the Louvre Museum please contact 99, rue de Rivoli, Rue du Louvre, Paris, 75001, Tel: +33 (0)1 4020 5050, E-mail: info@louvre.fr

Courtyard of the Louvre Palace and the Pyramid
Photograph taken by Benh Lieu Song

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine, housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts edificeIt holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces (the largest in the world) by such painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Major sculptors represented in the museum include François Rude, Jules Cavelier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Auguste Rodin, Paul Gauguin, Camille Claudel and Honoré Daumier.

Major painters and works represented include:

Paul Cézanne — 56 paintings including Apples and Oranges.

Claude Monet — 86 paintings (the main collection of his paintings is in the Musée Marmottan Monet though) including The Saint-Lazare Station, The Rue Montorgueil in Paris. Celebration of June 30, 1878, Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars, Rouen Cathedral. Harmony in Blue, Blue Water Lilies.

Vincent van Gogh — 24 paintings including Self Portrait, portrait of his friend Eugene Boch, The Siesta, The Church at Auvers, View from the Chevet, The Italian Woman, Starry Night Over the Rhone, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Bedroom in Arles.

Gustave Courbet — 48 paintings including The Artist's Studio, A Burial at Ornans, Young Man Sitting, L'Origine du monde.

Édouard Manet — 34 paintings including Olympia, The Balcony, Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets, The Luncheon on the Grass

Pierre-Auguste Renoir — 81 paintings including Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre

For more information and enquiries please contact Musée d'Orsay 62, rue de Lille 75343, Paris Cedex 07, Tel: +33 (0)1 40 49 48 14, E-mail: spa@musee-orsay.fr

D'Orsay Museum, seen from the right bank of the Seine river
Photograph taken by Sanchezn

Centre Georges Pompidou (also known as the Pompidou Centre in English) is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais. It houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne, which is the largest museum of modern art in Europe, as well as the Bibliothèque publique d'information, a vast public library and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research.

The Musée National d'Art Moderne is the national museum for modern art of France. The museum has the second largest collection of modern and contemporary art in the world, after the MOMA in New York. These works include painting, architecture, photography, cinema, new media, sculpture and design. A part of collection is exposed in a 14,000 square metre space divided between two floors of the Centre Pompidou, one for modern art (from 1905 to 1960) and the other for contemporary art (from 1960). The many styles of modern art (1905-1960) include Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, Abstract art, Surrealism. Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme, Conceptual art and other tendencies or groups are represented with works by Andy Warhol, Rauschenberg, Arman, César, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Agam, Vasarely, Beuys, Dubuffet, and Louise Bourgeois. Works of architecture and design include Philippe Starck, Jean Nouvel, and Perrault.

Several major exhibitions are organized each year on either the first or sixth floors. Among them there are many monographs including Dalí (1979), Henri Michaux (1978), Bonnard (1984), Pollock (1982), Roland Barthes (2002), Kandinsky (1984), Andy Warhol (1990), Jean-Luc Godard (2006), Francis Bacon (1996), Julio González (2007), Picasso (2000), Etienne-Martin (1984), Samuel Beckett (2007) and Frank Stella (1988).

For more information and enquiries regarding the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Musée National d'Art Moderne please contact Place Georges Pompidou, 75004 PARIS, Tel: +33 (0)1 44 78 12 33, E-mail: info@centrepompidou.fr

The Pompidou Centre in Paris, view from outside the building
Copyright © Renzo Piano

The Espace Dali is a unique permanent exhibition in France entirely devoted to the master of surrealism, Salvador Dali and more particularly to his sculptures and engravings. The museum contains 300 original artworks which feature the phantasmagorical world of one of the major 20th century artists. Famous original sculptures such as the Space Elephant and Alice in Wonderland are obviously presented. Famous artworks on paper include Moses and monotheism, Memories of Surrealism and Don Quixote. There are also three dimensional models of the most famous surrealistic images of the artist. The museum also holds creative workshops for children to give them the opportunity to familiarize themselves with Dali’s work. At present there are two permenant galleries in place: the Galerie Dali which presents a selection of some of the artist’s artworks (sculptures, engravings and lithographs), and the Galerie Montmartre.

For more information and enquiries please contact Espace Dalí 11, rue Poulbot, 75018 Paris, Tel: +33 (0)1 42 64 40 10, E-mail: info@daliparis.com

Interior view of Espace Dalí, showing some three dimensional models

The Musée du quai Branly, known in English as the Quai Branly Museum is is a museum in Paris, France that features indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The museum is located at 37, quai Branly - portail Debilly, 75007 Paris, France, situated close to the Eiffel Tower. The nearest métro and RER stations are Alma – Marceau and Pont de l'Alma. The museum contains the collections of the now-closed Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie and the ethnographic department of the Musée de l'Homme. The museum contains 267,000 objects in its permanent collection, of which 3,500 items from the collection are on display. A part of it is now exhibit at the Pavillon des Sessions of the musée du Louvre, where the master pieces are such as "l'homme de fer". The museums' library has three different departments:

Book collection with 2 reading rooms : a research reading room at the top floor and a popular reading room at the ground floor.

Picture collection with photographs and drawings.

Archive collection.
The library has collections from important ethnologists such as Georges Condominas, Françoise Girard, Nesterenko, or art trader such as Jacques Kerchache. There are also many Aboriginal artists represented in the museums collection.

For more information and enquiries please contact musée du quai Branly 37, quai Branly 75007 – Paris, Tel: +33 (0)1 56 61 70 00, E-mail: contact@quaibranly.fr

View of the African exhibit at the Musée du quai Branly
Photograph taken by Andreas Praefcke

The Musée Picasso is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris. The Musée Picasso contains more than 3000 different works of art by Pablo Picasso including drawings, ceramics and paintings. This is complemented by Picasso's own personal art collection of works by other artists, including Cézanne, Degas, Rousseau, Seurat, de Chirico and Matisse. It also contains some Iberian bronzes and a good collection of primitive art. One of the most impressive aspects of the museum is that it contains a large number of works which Picasso painted after his seventieth birthday. There are a few rooms with thematic presentations, but the museum largely follows a chronological sequence, displaying painting, drawings, sculptures and prints. Other items on display include photographs, manuscripts, newspaper clippings and photographs to provide additional contextual information. The second floor has a special area set aside for temporary exhibitions and prints. The third floor contains the library, the documentation and archives department.

For more information and enquiries please contact Musée national Picasso, Hôtel Salé 5, rue de Thorigny, 75003 - Paris, Tel: +33 (0)1 42 71 25 21

Backside of the Hôtel Salé hosting the Musée Picasso in Paris
Copyright © LPLT

The Musée du Vin (Wine Museum or Paris Wine Museum) is a cultural venue in the 16th arrondissement located at 5, square Charles Dickens, Paris, France next to the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower. The nearest métro station is Passy. The museum testifies to the richness and diversity of the French craft of winemaking through an exposure to tools and objects used to work the grapevine and the wine. The collection is showed in an old setting used in the Middle Ages and arranged later in storerooms by the Tiny Brothers of the Convent of Passy. A rich collection of more than 2,000 pieces is presented on the tools of viticulture, winemaking and wine tasting. The oldest of them date back to BC. The wax figures, as some historical Napoléon, Pasteur or Balzac, depict objects in the collection. In France, more than two thousand years of expertise led to the development of world-famous wines. Generations of winemakers, master chairs, coopers and wine experts have continued to refine their techniques to produce the most prestigious wines. This exhibition pays tribute to evoke their professions. It offers visitors the opportunity to recognize or discover traditional tools, sometimes quirky, often overlooked, which are now part of French heritage. Many in fact are no longer used and are now kept in private collections and museums. They show, for generations to come, the ingenuity of their inventors and the skill of those who mastered its use.

For more information and enquiries please contact Wine Museum of Paris 5, Square Charles Dickens / Rue des Eaux, 75016 - Paris, Tel: 0033 1 45 25 63 26, E-mail: info@museeduvinparis.com

Musée du Vin,
former cellars and entrance to the museum vaults

The Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France. The museum includes sites throughout France, including the original location at the Jardin des Plantes in the 5th arrondissement of Paris (métro Place Monge). The galleries there include the Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology, the Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy, and the famous Grand Gallery of Evolution. The museum's Menagerie is also located here.The herbarium of the museum, referred to by code P, includes a large number of important collections amongst its 8,000,000 plant specimens. It publishes Adansonia, a botanical periodical, and journals on the flora of New Caledonia, Madagascar and Comores, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Cameroon, and Gabon. The Musée de l'Homme is also in Paris, in the XVIe arrondissement (métro Trocadéro). It houses displays in ethnography and physical anthropology, including artifacts, fossils, and other objects. Two zoos, the Parc zoologique de Paris (also known as the Zoo de Vincennes), at the Bois de Vincennes in the XIIe arrondissement, and the Parc zoologique de Clères, at a mediæval manor in Clères (Seine-Maritime), are also part of the museum, as is the Arboretum de Chèvreloup in Rocquencourt.

For more information and enquiries please contact 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 - Paris, Tel: +33 (0)1 40 79 30 00, E-mail: smercade@mnhn.fr

The National Museum of Natural History,
a statue of Buffon faces the Great Gallery of Evolution
Photograph taken by Eric Pouhier

Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris Museum of Modern Art) s an art museum in Paris dedicated to the arts of the 20th century. It is located at 11 Avenue du Président Wilson in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.The museum collections include over 8000 works illustrating various trends of the art of the 20th century. Exhibitions on the major movements and artists highlights from the European scene of the 20th century, but also monographic and thematic exhibitions present the main trends of today's art. Temporary exhibitions run every six weeks. The museum collections include over 8000 works illustrating various trends of the art of the 20th century. Exhibitions on the major movements and artists highlights from the European scene of the 20th century, but also monographic and thematic exhibitions present the main trends of today's art. Temporary exhibitions run every six weeks.

For more information and enquiries please contact Musée d'Art Moderne de Ville de Paris, 11 avenue du President Wilson, 75116 - Paris, Tel: +33 (0)1 53 67 40 00