Visit Musée d’Orsay
The Musée d’Orsay in Paris began as the Gare d’Orsay, a grand railway station and hotel built for the 1900 World’s Fair. It was built by architect Victor Laloux on the site of the burned Palais d’Orsay.
History of the Musée d’Orsay
The museum served long-distance trains until 1939 when the platforms became too short for longer modern electric and diesel transport. During the Second World War it was used as a mailing centre and then reception station for returning prisoners of war in 1945.
It was organised for destruction in the 1970s, however received official protection when the government cancelled plans. President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing proposed turning it into a national museum dedicated to 19th-century art.
Architects Renaud Bardon, Pierre Colboc, and Jean-Paul Philippon restored the exterior, while Italian designer Gae Aulenti sculpted the striking interior galleries within the grand central nave.
It was inaugurated by President François Mitterrand on December 1, 1986, and opened to the public on December 9, 1986
The Musée d’Orsay today
The museum houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh.
Explore the sculpture hall in the museum’s main entrance to see classical marble sculptures and works. Look up to see the incredible huge clocks in the hall too. On the upper level you can find the famous transparent clock face that looks out over Paris.
The Most famous paintings at Musée d’Orsay
Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone, Self-portrait, Bedroom at Arles
Claude Monet’s Poppies, Gare Saint-Lazare, Waterlilies
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette
Edouard Manet Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe
Edgar Degas, The Dance Class
Why visit Musée d’Orsay with a Private Tour Guide?
A walking tour of the Musée d’Orsay is the perfect way to see all the paintings you want to see and learn all about the story behind them. Let a guide take you round the museum so you can leave with a greater appreciation of all the art inside!
