Page 60 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Paris

58  INTRODUCING P ARIS

Exploring Paris’s Museums and Galleries

Paris holds great treasures in its museums and art galleries.
The major national art collection is to be found at the Musée
du Louvre, which began collecting over 400 years ago and is
still growing. Other important museums, such as the Musée
d’Orsay, the Musée du quai Branly and the Pompidou Centre,
have their own treasures, but there are scores of smaller,
specialized museums, each with its own interest.

Old Masters
The Mona Lisa was one of
the Musée du Louvre’s first
paintings, acquired over
400 years ago. It also has
other fine Leonardos. They Dead Poet in the Musée Gustave Moreau
are to be found along
with superb Titians, it also devotes a lot of space to
Altar, Musée National du Moyen Age Raphaels and other Italian the earlier Realists and the
masters. Other works include formerly reviled 19th-century
Rembrandt’s Pilgrims at academic and “Salon” masters.
Greek, Roman and Emmäus, Watteau’s Gilles and There are superb works by
Medieval Art
Fragonard’s The Bathers. The Degas, Manet, Courbet
The Musée du Louvre has a Musée Cognacq-Jay has a (including his controversial
fine collection of sculptures small, but exquisite, collection L’Origine du Monde), Monet,
from Greek and Roman times, of paintings and drawings by Renoir, Millet, Cézanne,
along with medieval sculptures 18th- century French painters. Bonnard and Vuillard, and
and vestiges of the medieval The Musée Jacquemart-André some fine Gauguins, Van
Louvre under the Sully wing. has works by such masters as Goghs and Seurats.
The Musée de Cluny–Musée Mantegna, Uccello, Canaletto, A great ensemble of late
National du Moyen Age, a Rembrandt and Chardin. Monets is to be found at the
superb 15th-century mansion, Musée Marmottan Monet and
houses a major medieval Impressionist and Post- another at the Musée de
collection. Highlights are the l’Orangerie, including Monet’s
Unicorn Tapestries, the Kings’ Impressionist Art last great water lily murals
Heads from Notre-Dame and Installed in a converted (1920–25). Here also is a good
Basel Cathedral’s golden altar. 19th- century railway station, collection of Cézannes and
Late first-century Roman baths the Musée d’Orsay boasts late Renoirs.
adjoin the museum. Remains of the world’s largest collection Three artists’ studios and
houses from Roman and of art from the period 1848– homes are now museums of
medieval Paris can be seen in 1904. Admired for its fine their life and work. The Musée
the Crypte Archéologique Impressionist and Post- Rodin, in an attractive 18th-
near Notre-Dame cathedral. Impressionist collect ions, century mansion and garden,
offers a complete survey of the
master’s sculptures, drawings
and paintings. The Musée
Delacroix, set in a garden
near St-Germain-des-Prés, has
sketches, prints and oils by
the Romantic artist. The
Musée Gustave Moreau, in
an atmospheric 19th-century
town house, has an
extraordinary collection of
intricately painted canvases
of legendary femmes fatales
and dying youths. The Petit
Palais has an interesting
collection of 19th-century
paintings with four major
Dante and Virgil in the Underworld (1822) by Delacroix, Musée du Louvre Courbets, including The Sleep.

058-059_EW_Paris.indd 58 03/04/17 10:49 am
Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
Flashmap follow-on template “UK” LAYER
(Source v1.2)
Date 17th October 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm