Version française
 

The great museums – the Louvre, the Orsay, Beaubourg, Quai Branly

Sites and works that have influenced the French sensibility and are part of France's image
  • The museums themselves are iconic 
The Louvre, a royal palace

Works created before about 1850

 

 

Beaubourg, a 1960's statement

Modern and contemporary art
The d'Orsay Museum, sumptuous 19th-century railway station

Works from about 1850 to the turn of the 19th century

 

 

Quai Branly Museum (for tribal arts), 2005

The latest great museum is about very different arts

 

 

  • We interpret works that have influenced French sensibility and are part of France's image 

 

 

"The raft of the Medusa", by Géricault, 1819
Major works of the second part of the 19th century

 

 

  • These visits go far beyond the usual  
Crowd-drawing magnet, for one masterpiece among 300
A series to which the Louvre devotes an entire room, that we may have all to ourselves

 

 

  • A comment on the Mona Lisa

It is one masterpiece among the hundreds that the Louvre harbors. and has no special importance to art history. Yet as the planet's most marketed work, it does make sense to follow the crowd to see it.

 


•Costs: please CLICK

º Museum entrance

 

Credits: Louvre and Orsay / Catherine Aubin ; Géricault / Julien Debure ; Manet announcement / Catherine Aubin ;  other photos / Claude Abron  

 

 

 

Unexpected Paris guided tours