Paris art galleries

By <a href="#author-bio">Alice Padfield</a>
By Alice Padfield
Published: July 17, 2024
Musee D'Orsay, Paris

See world-class exhibitions and visit top Paris art galleries for free!

Paris boasts some of the most famous and important art galleries and museums in the world and is the home of priceless iconic art works dating back thousands of years, to modern and contemporary artists.

The Louvre Museum

The Louvre Museum is considered one of the finest art galleries in the world for its wide collections of pre-historic artefacts to 18th century masterpieces and is one on everyone’s bucket list. From world-famous works of art like the enigmatic Mona Lisa, to the stunning Venus de Milo, the Louvre contains over 35,000 pieces to be admired over eight themed historic departments and does not fail to disappoint. 

The Louvre, Paris

The Musee d'Orsay

Another one of the best Paris art galleries is the Musee d’Orsay set on the bank of the River Seine. One of the most popular art galleries in Paris, it showcases art and sculpture from 1848 to 1915, featuring works by the big names such as Delacroix, Manet, Gauguin, Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Sisley and van Gogh. Set in a converted train station, visitors can admire the stunning Beaux Arts architecture and huge original turn of the 20th century hanging clock – one of the most photographed items in the whole museum!

Musee D'Orsay, Paris

The Centre Pompidou

If you prefer more modern and contemporary art, the Centre Pompidou is considered the most important museum of modern art in Europe, second in the world only to the MOMA in New York. So with that reputation you’re bound to be captivated. Outside-in you’ll be impressed by this unconventional building, one-of-a-kind in its design with multi-coloured facilities on the outside of the building. Within, there are all manner of media for you to admire from video, to sculpture, Fauvists to Cubists. 

The Centre Pompidou, Paris

More top Paris Museums

One of the most picturesque art galleries in Paris is the Orangerie Museum, situated in the stunning Tuileries Gardens. The Orangerie Museum houses some of the best works of art from Monet, Renoir and Picasso – among other impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces. Just outside Paris you’ll find the Musée Nissim de Camondo situated in the former private home of the rich Parisian Moïse de Camondo – so you’ll be admiring more than just the impressive collection of objets d’art and French furniture on show. Château d’Écouen, in rural Paris, is also home to the National Museum of the Renaissance - a must-visit to learn about one of the most important movements both socially and artistically to have come out of Europe in all of history. 

The Orangerie Museum, Paris

Art galleries you can visit with The Paris Pass®

Abbaye Royale De Chaalis
Surrounded by lush woodland the Abbaye Royale de Chaalis is a magnificent château to the north of Paris.
Normally €8.00

Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou is Europe’s most important museum of modern art and one of the worlds most significant art galleries.
Normally €14.00

Châteaux de Champs-Sur-Marne
Marvel at the impressive 18th century Châteaux de Champs-Sur-Marne, a beautiful French mansion in outer Paris. Famed for its structure and size, its featured in films from Dangerous Liaisons and Marie Antoinette.
Normally €8.00

Dali Paris
The enduring popularity and influence of the surrealist artist Salvadore Dali is captured in the fascinating Dali Paris.
Normally €13.00

Gustave Moreau Museum
The Musée Gustave Moreau was designed by the painter himself and includes his private apartment and the large gallery he built to display his work.
Normally €7.00

Louvre Museum
The Louvre Museum is unquestionably one of the finest art galleries in the world. Home to thousands of classic and modern masterpieces, the Louvre is the jewel in the crown of French culture, a towering testament to European civilisation and history.
Normally €17.00

La Grande Arche de la Defense
Take to La Grande Arche’s expansive 1000m² promenade to experience open-air panoramic views of Paris unlike any other.
Normally €15.00

Museum of Decorative Arts
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs houses over 150,000 objects of French craftsmanship and decorative art.
Normally €11.00

Museum of 3D Relief Maps
The Musée des Plans-Reliefs is a brilliantly eccentric museum devoted to an intricate and largely forgotten craft.
Normally €12.00

National Museum Of Eugéne Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) was a fascinating man, a great painter, and a typically intellectual French hero.
Normally €7.00

Museum of the Asian Arts
The Musée National des Arts Asiatiques is an unrivalled collection and major centre for the appreciation and knowledge of Asian civilizations.
Normally €11.50

Nissim De Camondo Museum
The extraordinarily sumptuous Musée Nissim de Camondo is located in a private home that was commissioned and lived in by the fantastically rich Parisian, Moïse de Camondo.
Normally €9.00

National Museum of the Renaissance
A delight of Renaissance architecture and interior design, the Ecouen Castle today houses the Musée National de la Renaissance - the National Museum of the Renaissance - making it a fantastic combination of interior and exterior arts.
Normally €5.00

Orangerie Museum
Situated on the bank of the Seine, in the picturesque Tuileries Gardens, the Orangerie Museum is filled with an inspiring collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces.
Normally €9.00

Picasso Museum
The Picasso Museum in the stunning Hotel Salé is the most impressive and comprehensive collection of Picasso’s artworks in the world.
Normally €14.00

Rodin Museum
Auguste Rodin was one of the world’s greatest sculptors. His neoclassical style revitalised the sculptural and wider artistic scene.
Normally €12.00

The Orsay Museum
The Orsay Museum was originally designed as a train station in 1900. By the 1950’s it became apparent that the platforms were too short for modern trains and the building became home to a theatre.
Normally €14.00

Alice Padfield
Alice Padfield
Content Manager

Alice is a copywriter in the Content team at Go City®, where she combines her love for travel, literature, food and theatre to craft inspiring content for cultural explorers. From blog articles to TikToks, she creates engaging stories that help travellers uncover hidden gems and must-see spots in every city. Passionate about exploring new destinations, Alice shares her discoveries to help others curate unforgettable itineraries.

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Exterior of the Picasso Museum in Paris
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Did you know...? Interesting facts about Pablo Picasso

Paris has captured artists' imaginations for centuries, and the celebratory Picasso Museum continues to inspire creatives to this day. Before you visit their stunning collection, here are some interesting Pablo Picasso facts to help you enrich your cultural experience. Visiting Paris to soak up the culture? With The Paris Attraction Pass®, you'll get a free Paris Museum Pass to see the Picasso Museum, plus over 50 other must-see Paris attractions like The Louvre, Centre Pompidou, and the Arc de Triomphe. 🎨Explore the attractions you can see with the Paris Museum Pass🎨 -✈️ Buy The Paris Pass® ✈️ While Pablo Picasso is best known by his last name, his full name is 25 words long At his baptism, Picasso was christened – deep breath – Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano María de los Remedios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso. His incredibly long name is a mixture of relatives' and saints' names. Ruiz was his father's surname, and Picasso his mother's. Picasso's first word was ‘pencil’ With a father who also worked as a painter, it was expected that art would be in Picasso's blood and his first word – said to be the Spanish word lapiz, meaning pencil in English, merely proved that. His father, who specialized in naturalistic paintings of birds, began teaching him to create artistic works from the age of seven. He decided that he would give up painting when Picasso turned 14 – claiming that his son had become a better painter than him. Picasso was a bad student After Picasso's father felt he had nothing left to teach his son, Picasso moved on to a fine art school when he turned 13. Even as a prodigy, his academics suffered as he spent most of his time painting. Police thought Picasso had stolen the Mona Lisa... The international art world had one of its biggest scandals in 1911 –  the Mona Lisa was stolen from The Louvre. When the police began asking the public for tips, one of the former thieves singled out French literary figure Guillaume Apollinaire, whom he had apparently sold stolen work to. Apollinaire then claimed that his good friend Picasso was responsible for stealing the Mona Lisa and Picasso was detained as a suspect. Da Vinci's masterpiece was later found a couple of years later – stolen by a former Louvre security guard during a deal gone awry. ...Ironically, Picasso has had more works of art stolen than any other artist According to the Art Loss Register, over a thousand Picasso works have been listed as lost, stolen or disputed. They even continue to be stolen to this day, with a spate of robberies happening between 2010-2012. Picasso was infamous for his love affairs It’s no secret that Picasso has had a string of romantic entanglements with several women throughout his life, with four children fathered by three different women. He was married to former ballerina Olga Khokhlova for 10 years. They separated after a few years, and as divorce was a costly process they remained married until she passed away in 1955. In 1961 he remarried Jacqueline Roque. Several of his works were inspired by his lovers, including Fernande Olivier, who's said to have inspired his 'Rose Period', Dora Maar, and Marie Thérese Walter. Picasso produced an astonishing 150,000 works With collections and museums dedicated to the artist across the world, Picasso's body of work spans an incredible 76 years and over 150,000 different works. Divided into different artistic phases of his life, including Cubism and the Blue Period, he was incredibly experimental and was constantly evolving as an artist. Picasso wrote poetry and plays While Picasso is best known for his paintings, in the latter years of his life he also began to dabble in other creative arts. He wrote over 300 poems and a couple of surrealist plays. While they weren't nearly as successful as his other artistic works, one of his plays had a public reading with leading thinkers Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Picasso's last words inspired a Paul McCartney song At the age of 91, Picasso said at a dinner party in Mougins (a village in the south of France), "Drink to me, drink to my health; you know I can't drink anymore." He died of a heart attack. Inspired by the artist, Paul McCartney wrote a song named "Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me,)" where the artist's final utterance is the foundation of its chorus. Visit the Picasso Museum and more with The Paris Pass® With The Paris Pass® you can access the fabulous Picasso Museum for free, plus you'll get free entry to over 50 top museums in Paris. One pass, in one app, for everything you want to see. 🎨Explore the attractions you can see with the Paris Museum Pass🎨 -✈️ Buy The Paris Pass® ✈️
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Monet's water lilies
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Musee d'Orsay vs Musee Marmottan Monet

It’s 1874, and a group of young artists known collectively as the ‘Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc.’ launch a low-key exhibition in Paris. Flash forward 150 years and many of the artists involved – among them Monet, Degas and Pissarro – are household names; pioneers and leading practitioners of the movement that became known as Impressionism. It’s fitting then that the world’s finest collections of Impressionist and indeed Post-Impressionist art are housed in Paris museums, among them the mighty Musée d’Orsay and small-but-perfectly-formed Musée Marmottan Monet. Read on for our guide to this dynamic duo as we pit the Musée d’Orsay vs Musée Marmottan Monet… Musée d’Orsay in Brief The Musée d’Orsay opened in 1986, inside the Beaux-Arts beauty that is the former Gare d'Orsay, a turn-of-the-century railway station. It’s set on the Left Bank of the Seine with views across the river to the Tuileries and the Louvre and boasts the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art on the planet. We’re talking works by (deep breath): Monet, Manet, Gauguin, Cézanne, Rodin, Renoir, Whistler, Toulouse-Lautrec and some dude called Vincent van Gogh, to name just a few (phew!). Here’s your opportunity to see – in real life – world-renowned masterpieces like Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ series, Whistler’s ‘Mother’, van Gogh’s hypnotic ‘Starry Night over the Rhône’ and Renoir’s ‘Bal du Moulin de la Galette’ (pictured above). And these historic paintings and sculptures are only the half of it: the building is a work of art in itself, as evidenced by the soaring arches of the main hall, and the massive station-clock window with its timeless views across the Seine to the Louvre Museum and Sacré-Cœur Basilica beyond. Musée d’Orsay in Numbers: Size: 574 feet long and 246 feet wide, this former train station is supported by 12,000 metric tons of steel – beat that, Eiffel Tower! Artworks: You can explore up to 3,000 sculptures, paintings and pieces of decorative art from the collection at any one time. Top artists: Among the most represented artists here are Monet (86 paintings), Renoir (81), Redon (106), Carrière (86), Cézanne (56) and Vuillard (70). Visitors: around 3.3 million annually. Unmissable Musée d’Orsay Highlights We’re in the Monet! Here’s where to ogle many of the maestro’s most famous works – in fact the biggest collection of his art outside of the Musée Marmottan Monet (of which more below). Don’t miss pieces from his mesmerizing ‘Water Lilies’ and ‘Haystacks’ series, plus the majestic ‘Londres: Le Parlement’ and ‘Coquelicots’. The van Gogh collection here is equally impressive. Get up close to the original canvases of paintings you’ll feel you’ve known your entire life, including ‘Self Portrait’, ‘Starry Night over the Rhône’, and ‘Bedroom in Arles’. A modern master, Manet’s early works were considered utterly shocking back in the 1860s, and pieces including ‘Le Déjeuner Sur l'Herbe’ and ‘Olympia’ still pack a mighty punch. The light and movement in Renoir’s iconic ‘Bal du Moulin de la Galette’ is a joy to behold. The 1876 masterpiece is rightly celebrated as one of the best pieces produced by the Impressionist movement. Do. Not. Miss. Getting In Entry to the Musée d’Orsay is included with the Paris Pass, which can save you up to 50% if you plan to take in a number of popular Paris attractions, tours and activities while you’re in town.  Get more information and buy your Paris Pass here. Musée Marmottan Monet in Brief The Musée Marmottan Monet, set on the edge of the epic Bois de Boulogne park in the 16th arrondissement, is a rather different prospect to the mighty Musée d’Orsay. For starters, it’s way smaller. And, as the name suggests, it’s primarily focused on the work of Claude Monet. In fact, it contains the world’s largest collection of his work; something in the order of 100 pieces. These include instantly recognizable works including ‘Impression, Sunrise’ (the extraordinary oil on canvas that gave the art movement its name), plus large scale paintings from the ‘Water Lilies’ and ‘Haystacks’ series, and his views of Japanese bridges, the Tuileries, Gare Saint-Lazare and the Houses of Parliament in London. Many of the artworks here were bequeathed in 1966 by Michel Monet, Monet’s son and heir. But it’s not all about the Monet, Monet, Monet here. Many other artists of the Impressionist and modern era are represented, including Degas, Manet, Gauguin, Rodin, Sisley, Pissarro et al, plus the world’s largest permanent collection of works by Berthe Morisot, the first female Impressionist. Musée Marmottan Monet in Numbers: Size: A former 19th-century hunting lodge, Musée Marmottan Monet is inevitably smaller than a train station, yet still packs a considerable punch. Artworks: The collection comprises more than 300 carefully curated works of art; there are around 100 in the Monet exhibition, 25+ by Berthe Morisot, and dozens more paintings and sculptures by the world’s best-loved Impressionists. Unmissable Musée Marmottan Monet Highlights The clue’s in the name here and the Monet collection does not disappoint. You’ll want to ogle ‘Impression, Sunrise’ for sure (though do check it isn’t on loan elsewhere before you go!). Then there’s the maestro’s stunning take on Rouen Cathedral, various snowy European landscapes and the Gare Saint-Lazare. Several paintings from Monet’s beloved ‘Water Lilies’ series are displayed in a monumental, light-filled rotunda-style space: strategic seating invites viewers to pause a while and contemplate the art. The result is both hypnotic and illusory. Don’t miss the permanent collection of works by Berthe Morisot. Highlights include her ‘Reclining Shepherdess’ and portrait of Manet’s brother with his daughter. The Impressionism and Modern Times exhibition is the Impressionist movement in microcosm. Check out Gustave Caillebotte’s masterful ‘Paris Street, Rainy Day’, Gauguin’s colorful ‘Bouquet of Flowers’ and Manet’s alluring portrait of Berthe Morisot for the win. Getting In Musée Marmottan Monet is open daily except Mondays. Hours are 10AM-6PM, with late opening until 9PM on Thursdays. Last admission is an hour before closing time. Tickets cost €14 and can be purchased via the official website. Musée d'Orsay vs Musée Marmottan Monet: Which is Best? There’s a great deal to enjoy at both museums. The obvious benefits of Musée d’Orsay would be its central location and huge, broad collection of painting, sculpture and decorative arts. That said, the sheer size of a place like this can be intimidating, and its popularity can mean lots of standing on tiptoe trying to catch a glimpse of your favorite piece over an ocean of bobbing heads. The fact that Musée Marmottan Monet is a little off the beaten track can be considered a positive for that reason; it’s far less busy and its size makes the exhibitions easier to digest. It’s unlikely anyone but the most die-hard Impressionism enthusiast would want to see both. We’d recommend Musée d’Orsay if you only have time for one, and perhaps combine Musée Marmottan Monet with something like the mighty Louvre, for a broader overall perspective on the history of European art. Save on Paris Museums and Other Attractions Save on admission to dozens of attractions, tours and experiences with The Paris Pass. Check out @TheParisPass on Instagram for the latest top tips and attraction info.
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Stuart Bak
Notre-Dame cathedral
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