Musée d'Orsay facts for kids

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Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay as seen from the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor
Established	1986
Location	Rue de Lille 75343 Paris, France
Type	Art museum, Design/Textile Museum, Historic site
Visitors	3.2 million (2022) Ranked 2nd nationally (2022) Ranked 15th globally in 2022
Public transit access	Solférino Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay (which means Orsay Museum in English) is a famous museum in Paris, France. It sits on the Left Bank of the Seine River. The museum is inside a beautiful old building that used to be a train station called Gare d'Orsay. This station was built between 1898 and 1900 in a style called Beaux-Arts.

The Musée d'Orsay mainly shows French art from 1848 to 1914. This includes paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photographs. It has the world's largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artworks. You can see masterpieces by famous painters like Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh. Many of these works were moved here from another gallery when the museum opened in 1986. It is one of the biggest art museums in Europe.

In 2022, over 3.2 million people visited the museum. This made it the sixth-most-visited art museum in the world that year. It was also the second-most-visited art museum in France, right after the Louvre.

History of the Museum Building
Art Collection
Selected Collection Highlights
Museum Directors
See also

History of the Museum Building

The Musée d'Orsay seen from the Pont du Carrousel

The large clock inside the Musée d'Orsay, part of the original train station.

The beautiful interior of the museum.

The Musée d'Orsay building used to be a train station called Gare d'Orsay. It was built right next to the Seine River. This spot was chosen because it was easy for travelers to reach. The station was built for a railway company and finished just in time for the 1900 World's Fair. Three architects designed it: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard, and Victor Laloux.

The station's design looked a bit old-fashioned for its time. Trains were a very new invention. People expected a modern building to match this new technology. Instead, the Gare d'Orsay looked back to older styles. It even hid the modern train technology inside its classic-looking walls. This station was the main stop for trains going to southwestern France until 1939.

By 1939, the station's platforms were too short for the longer trains being used. After that, it was only used for local trains. During World War II, part of it became a mailing center. Later, it was used as a setting for movies, like The Trial by Orson Welles. It also served as a temporary home for a theater company and for auctioneers.

In the 1970s, a new train line was being built under the old station. This led to a new station being built underground. In 1970, there was a plan to tear down the old station. But the Minister for Cultural Affairs, Jacques Duhamel, stopped it. He didn't want a new hotel built there instead. The station was then protected as a historic monument in 1978.

The idea to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museum of France. They wanted a museum that would connect the art of the Louvre (older art) with the National Museum of Modern Art at the Georges Pompidou Centre (very modern art). This plan was approved in 1974.

In 1978, a competition was held to design the new museum. A team of three young architects won the job. They created 20,000 square meters of new space over four floors. The building work was done by Bouygues. In 1981, an Italian architect named Gae Aulenti was chosen to design the inside of the museum. She planned the layout, decorations, and furniture. Her design used the three main levels under the museum's curved roof. On the main floor, the old train platforms became a central area. This area helps break up the large spaces for sculptures and galleries, making it easier to see the art.

By July 1986, the museum was ready for its art. It took six months to move in about 2,000 paintings, 600 sculptures, and other works. The museum officially opened in December 1986. The president at the time, François Mitterrand, was there for the opening.

Today, about 3,000 art pieces are on display at the Musée d'Orsay. Inside the museum, you can see a cool 1:100 scale model of the Paris Opera and the area around it. This model is under a glass floor that visitors walk on. It helps people understand how Paris was planned, and it's one of the museum's most popular attractions.

Another special part of the museum is "A Passion for France: The Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection." This collection was given to the museum by Marlene and Spencer Hays, who are art collectors from Texas. They started collecting art in the 1970s. In 2016, the museum agreed to keep their collection of about 600 artworks together. This was the largest donation of foreign art to France since World War II. The collection mostly features post-Impressionist works. Some artists in this collection include Bonnard, Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and Edgar Degas.

To make space for new art, the Musée d'Orsay is planning a big renovation. This project, called Orsay Grand Ouvert (Orsay Wide Open), is partly funded by a €20 million donation from an anonymous American supporter. The renovation is expected to be finished by 2026. It will add new galleries and educational spaces.

The Musée d'Orsay seen from the right bank of the Seine river.

The Festival Hall of the Musée d'Orsay.

The square next to the museum has six large bronze statues. These statues represent different continents. They were first made for the 1878 World's Fair:

South America by Aimé Millet
Asia by Alexandre Falguière
Oceania by Mathurin Moreau
Europe by Alexandre Schoenewerk
North America by Ernest-Eugène Hiolle
Africa by Eugène Delaplanche

Art Collection

Vincent van Gogh:
Starry Night Over the Rhône, 1888

Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876

Paul Cézanne:
The Card Players 1894–1895

Paul Cézanne:
Apples and Oranges
c. 1899

The Musée d'Orsay is famous for its amazing collection of art from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. It's especially known for its Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

Major Paintings and Artists

The museum has many important paintings by well-known artists, including:

Frédéric Bazille – 6 paintings, like The Family Reunion.
Pierre Bonnard – 60 paintings, including The Chequered Blouse.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau – 12 paintings, such as The Birth of Venus.
Gustave Caillebotte – 7 paintings, including The Floor Scrapers.
Paul Cézanne – 56 paintings, like Apples and Oranges and The Card Players.
Gustave Courbet – 48 paintings, including The Artist's Studio and A Burial at Ornans.
Edgar Degas – 43 works, including paintings like The Parade and L'Absinthe.
Paul Gauguin – 24 paintings, such as Arearea and Tahitian Women on the Beach.
Vincent van Gogh – 24 paintings, including Bedroom in Arles, Self Portrait, and Starry Night.
Édouard Manet – 34 paintings, like Olympia and The Luncheon on the Grass.
Jean-François Millet – 27 paintings, including The Angelus and The Gleaners.
Claude Monet – 86 paintings, such as The Saint-Lazare Station, Blue Water Lilies, and Haystacks.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – 81 paintings, including Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre and The Bathers.
Georges Seurat – 19 paintings, including The Circus.
Alfred Sisley – 46 paintings, including Inondation at Port-Marly.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – 18 paintings, like La Toilette.
James McNeill Whistler – 3 paintings, including Whistler's Mother.

Sculptures

Auguste Rodin, The Gates of Hell

In the 1800s, sculptures were very popular. They were often used to show a person's social status or political power. However, by the mid-1900s, many of these sculptures were put away and not displayed.

When the Orsay train station was turned into a museum in the 1970s, many 19th-century sculptures were brought out again. The large central area inside the new museum was perfect for showing them. When the museum opened in 1986, it had 1,200 sculptures. These came from places like the Louvre and other collections. Before opening, the museum also received over 200 sculptures as gifts from art lovers and artists' families.

Since 1986, the museum has added more sculptures. Some were exchanged with other museums, like Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science by Louis-Ernest Barrias. Others, like The Thinker and The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin, were also acquired. The museum also buys specific works to complete its collections. For example, it bought a panel of Be Mysterious by Paul Gauguin and Maturity by Camille Claudel. Today, the Musée d'Orsay has more than 2,200 sculptures.

Some of the important sculptors whose works are in the collection include:

Other Art Forms

The museum also has collections of:

Architecture and decorative arts (like furniture and design)
Photography

Selected Collection Highlights

Eugène Delacroix, The Lion Hunt, c. 1854
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857
Claude Monet, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, (right section), includes Gustave Courbet, 1865-1866
Paul Cézanne, Portrait of Achille Emperaire, 1868
Eugène Boudin, Bathers on the Beach at Trouville, 1869
James McNeill Whistler, Whistler's Mother, 1871
Gustave Caillebotte, Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers), 1875
Edgar Degas, L'Absinthe, 1876
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance in the Country (Aline Charigot and Paul Lhote), 1883
Paul Sérusier, The Talisman/Le Talisman, 1888
Self-portrait (1889) by Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh, The Church at Auvers, 1890
Paul Gauguin, Tahitian Women on the Beach, 1891
Georges Seurat, The Circus, 1891
Georges Lacombe, L'Existence, 1894–1896
Albert Lebourg, Paris, l'écluse de la Monnaie. Soleil d'hiver
József Rippl-Rónai, Female with Flower, 1891
Louise Catherine Breslau, Portrait of Henry Davison, 1880
Joaquín Sorolla, La Vuelta de la Pesca, 1894
Eugène Delaplanche, Africa, 1878