Museums of Paris - The treasures of French heritage

The Museums of Paris

Cultural destination par excellence, Paris has countless museums, from the major international institutions to the little unusual museums that very few people know. There's enough to spend several days exploring the museums of Paris.

To see a little clearer among over 130 museums sheltered by Paris, here's a quick round-up of the best museums in Paris:

• Lovers of art and architecture will head to the inevitable Louvre, the Orsay museum and its fantastic collections, or the Maillol Museum...
• The exhibitions of modern or contemporary art are best found at the Pompidou Centre or the Pinacoteca of Paris.
• For lovers of civilization and culture, the Quai Branly Museum, the Arab World Institute, and the Guimet museum are must-visits.
• In science, there is the Cité des Sciences de La Villette or the Palace of Discovery.

Note also, for photography, the Jeu de Paume museum; for music, the Cité de la Musique; for Paris's history, the Carnavalet Museum. For specific artists, there's the Dali museum in Montmartre, the Musée Delacroix, the Picasso Museum, or the Rodin museum - plus the exhibitions of the Grand Palais, which attracts large numbers of visitors at every event.

Museums reflect the history and cultural richness of the capital. Whatever your age or tastes, there is something for everyone!

The Louvre Museum

Located in the heart of Paris in the former residence of the kings of France, discover the wonders of the largest museum in the world and its treasure of over 35,000 works: The Louvre Museum.

During your visit, you will cross the history and the world through the greatest masterpieces of the Louvre: the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory, the Apollo Gallery, the Coronation of Napoleon.

With 210,000 sqm - 60,600 of which are devoted entirely to exhibitions - and 10 million annual visitors, the Louvre is one of the three most important museums in the world, and the 3rd most visited monument in Paris behind Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Sacré-Cœur Basilica.

The Louvre collections are spread over 2 floors - a ground floor and a mezzanine - each divided into three wings: Denon, Sully, and Richelieu.

Visiting the Louvre museum is structured around 8 departments:

• Eastern antiquity: from Prehistory to the early Islamic era, spanning various North African territories to the borders of the Arabian Peninsula.
• Egyptian antiquity: once called the Egyptian Museum, curated by Jean-François Champollion. Spread over three floors.
• Greek and Roman Antiquity: a broad overview of ancient art from Greece, Italy, and the Mediterranean basin.
• Art of Islam: created in 2003, with nearly 3,000 works displayed in the Cour Visconti.
• Sculptures: the largest collection of French sculptures in the world, plus Italian and German masterpieces.
• Art Objects: jewelry, statuettes, furniture, and tapestries from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century.
• Paintings: Italian and French primitives, major French Romantic works, 17th-century Dutch painting - from the 13th century to 1848.
• Prints and Drawings: a fragile collection shown only during temporary exhibitions.

Main masterpieces to discover at the Louvre Museum

You have to visit the Louvre two or three times, or more, to really do it justice. If you only have a few hours, here's a feasible circuit to see the most famous masterpieces:

• Entering via the Denon wing, you'll come face to face with two statues by Michelangelo: The Dying Slave and The Rebellious Slave.
• Room 10: stop in front of the moving Raft of the Medusa by Géricault.
• Room 8: The Coronation of Napoleon by David, as fascinating artistically as it is politically.
• The Winged Victory of Samothrace - and, in the room below, the famous Venus de Milo.
• Down the long corridor of Italian paintings: Saint Anne, the Virgin and Child by Leonardo da Vinci.
• Finally, the Mona Lisa - the world-famous portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, painted between 1503 and 1506.

In the Carrousel gallery (the access point to the Louvre Museum), you'll find shops, restaurants, and bookstores. Every evening at dusk, the Louvre Pyramid lights up - a perfect moment to combine your visit with an evening stroll through the Tuileries gardens.

The Orsay Museum

Housed in the former Orsay railway station, inaugurated for the Universal Exhibition of 1900, the Musée d'Orsay is one of the most prestigious museums in Paris after the Louvre, with over 3 million visitors annually.

Known worldwide for its rich collection of Impressionist art, the Musée d'Orsay covers all artistic creation of the Western world from 1848 to 1914 - painting, architecture, sculpture, decorative arts, and photography.

In late 2011, the museum reopened all of its spaces completely renovated, with new rooms including an additional 400 m² for Post-Impressionism, a restructured Impressionist Gallery, and a new "aquatic" café designed by the Campana brothers.

Discovering the Orsay Museum

The Musée d'Orsay, smaller than the Louvre, is still impressive and has the largest collection of Impressionist works in the world (Renoir, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh). Here is a list of essential works you can visit with your personal guide:

• L'Angélus (1858), Jean-François Millet
• Un enterrement à Ornans (1849-50), Gustave Courbet
• La Danse (1865-1869), Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
• Olympia (1863), Édouard Manet
• Porte de l'Enfer (1880-1917), Auguste Rodin
• Petite danseuse de 14 ans (1875-1880), Edgar Degas
• Portrait de l'artiste (1889), Vincent van Gogh
• Cathédrale de Rouen (1892-1894), Claude Monet
• La femme à la cafetière (c. 1895), Paul Cézanne
• Le Talisman (October 1888), Paul Sérusier

Themed visits

To make the most of your visit, follow one of these themed trails:

• For young dance lovers: Degas's dancers, Renoir's ballroom dance scenes, Toulouse-Lautrec's cabarets, Spanish dancers by Roig y Soler, and photographs by De Meyer.
• For young sea and boat lovers: Van Gogh's Starry Night, Monet and Caillebotte's sailboats at Argenteuil, Courbet's stormy sea, and Signac's coastal scenes.
• Don't miss the paintings that caused a revolution in their time: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Manet, Un enterrement à Ornans by Courbet, and La maison du pendu by Cézanne.

You'll also find works by Bonnard, Boudin, Caillebotte, Cézanne, Corot, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Millet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Seurat, Signac, Sisley, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh.

Planning your visit

To see the most in the least amount of time, consider the Paris Museum Pass, which grants skip-the-line access to over 50 museums including the Louvre and Orsay. If you'd rather have an expert bring the collections to life, our private tour of the Louvre and small-group guided tour are both excellent ways to see the masterpieces without missing a thing.