Museum sights in Paris
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Dalí Espace Montmartre
More than 300 works by Salvador Dalí (1904–89), the flamboyant Catalan surrealist printmaker, painter, sculptor and self-promoter, are on display at this surrealist-style basement museum located just west of place du Tertre. The collection includes Dalí’s strange sculptures (most in reproduction), lithographs, many of his illustrations and furniture (including the famous ‘lips’ sofa).
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Hôtel des Invalides
A 500m-long expanse of lawn known as the Esplanade des Invalides separates Faubourg St-Germain from the Eiffel Tower area. At the southern end of the esplanade, laid out between 1704 and 1720, is the final resting place of Napoleon, the man many French people consider to be the nation’s greatest hero.
Hôtel des Invalides was built in the 1670s by Louis XIV to provide housing for 4000 invalides (disabled war veterans). On 14 July 1789, a mob forced its way into the building and, after fierce fighting, seized 32,000 rifles before heading on to the prison at Bastille and the start of the French Revolution.
North of Hôtel des Invalides’ main courtyard, in the so-called
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Palais de Chaillot & Jardins du Trocadéro
The two curved, colonnaded wings of the Palais de Chaillot, built for the 1937 World Exhibition held in Paris, and the terrace in between them afford an exceptional panorama of the Jardins du Trocadéro, the Seine and the Eiffel Tower.
The palace's western wing contains two interesting museums. The Musée de l'Homme focuses on human development, ethnology, population and population growth; it's a branch of the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle. There are also excellent scientific and ethnographical temporary exhibits on everything from the personality and the brains to the Inuit people of Greenland.
The Musée de la Marine focuses on France's naval adventures from the 17…
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Musée Jacquemart-André
The Jacquemart-André Museum, founded by collector Édouard André and his portraitist wife Nélie Jacquemart, is in an opulent mid-19th-century residence on one of Paris’ posher avenues. It has furniture, tapestries and enamels, but is most noted for its paintings by Rembrandt and Van Dyck and Italian Renaissance works by Bernini, Botticelli, Carpaccio, Donatello, Mantegna, Tintoretto, Titian and Uccello. Don’t miss the Jardin d’Hiver (Winter Garden), with its marble statuary, tropical plants and double-helix marble staircase. Just off it is the delightful fumoir (the erstwhile smoking room) filled with exotic objects collected by Jacquemart during her travels. The…
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Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine
Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, in the Palais de Chaillot’s eastern wing, is a mammoth 23,000 sq metres spread over three floors devoted to French architecture and heritage. Exhibits include 350 wood and plaster casts of cathedral portals, columns and altars originally created for the 1878 Exposition Universelle. The highlight is the light-filled ground floor, which contains a beautiful collection of 350 plaster and wood casts (moulages) of cathedral portals, columns and gargoyles, and replicas of murals and stained glass originally created for the 1878 Exposition Universelle. The views of the Eiffel Tower from the windows are equally monumental.
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Musée de la Défense
A trip to this space located just below the Espace-Info information centre is a real highlight. Drawings, architectural plans and scale models trace the development of the district from the 17th century to the present day. Especially fascinating are the projects that were never built: the 750m-tall Tour Tourisme TV (1961) by the Polak brothers; Hungarian-born artist Nicholas Schöffer’s unspeakable Tour Lumière Cybernetique (1965), a ‘Cybernetic Light Tower’ that, at 324m, would stand at the same height as the Eiffel Tower; and the Tour sans Fin, a ‘Never-Ending Tower’ that would be 425m high, but just 39m in diameter. Ouch.
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Musée d’Art et d’Histoire
To the southwest of the basilica is the Museum of Art & History, housed in a restored Carmelite convent founded in 1625 and later presided over by Louise de France, the youngest daughter of Louis XV. Displays include reconstructions of the Carmelites’ cells, an 18th-century apothecary and, in the archaeology section, items found during excavations around the St-Denis Basilica. There’s a section on modern art, with a collection of work by a local son, the surrealist artist Paul Éluard (1895–1952), as well as an important collection of politically charged posters, cartoons, lithographs and paintings from the 1871 Paris Commune.
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Musée Pasteur
Housed in the apartment where the famous chemist and bacteriologist spent the last seven years of his life (1888–95), a tour of this museum takes you through Pasteur’s private rooms, a hall with such odds and ends as gifts presented to him by heads of state and drawings he did as a young man. After Pasteur’s death, the French government wanted to entomb his remains in the Panthéon, but his family, acting in accordance with his wishes, obtained permission to have him buried at his institute. The great savant lies in the basement crypt. Note that you will need to show a passport or ID card to gain entrance.
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Musée Cognacq-Jay
This museum in the Hôtel de Donon brings together oil paintings, pastels, sculpture, objets d’art, jewellery, porcelain and furniture from the 18th century assembled by Ernest Cognacq (1839–1928), founder of La Samaritaine department store (now undergoing a protracted overhaul) and his wife Louise Jay. Although Cognacq appreciated little of his collection, boasting to all who would listen that he had never visited the Louvre and was only acquiring collections for the status, the artwork and objets d’art give a pretty good idea of upper-class tastes during the Age of Enlightenment.
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Galeries du Panthéon Bouddhique du Japon et de la Chine
The Guimet Museum of Asiatic Arts is France’s foremost repository for Asian art and has sculptures, paintings, objets d’art and religious articles from Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet, Cambodia, China, Japan and Korea. Part of the collection, comprising Buddhist paintings and sculptures brought to Paris in 1876 by collector Émile Guimet, is housed in the Galeries du Panthéon Bouddhique du Japon et de la Chine in the sumptuous Hôtel Heidelbach a short distance to the north. Don’t miss it's wonderful Japanese garden.
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Musée de la Magie
The Magic Museum in the 16th-century caves (cellars) of the house of the Marquis de Sade examines the ancient arts of magic, optical illusion and sleight of hand, with regular magic shows (last one usually at 6pm) included. Some visitors may feel that the displays and very basic magic tricks do not justify the high admission fee. In fact, a collection of antique wind-up toys once included in the museum now forms the Musée des Automates, which is under the same roof and keeps identical hours. A combined ticket costs a whopping € 12/9.
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Musée National du Sport
A 2010 addition to this increasingly happening arrondissement, Paris’ National Museum of Sports covers just that: football, tennis, the Tour de France or polo … you name it, there is sporting paraphernalia to match in this modern space with bags of kid appeal. Ogle at skis used by triple gold medallist and 1968 French skiing legend Jean-Claude Killy; see the prototype motorcycle with three wheels used by Jean Naud to bike from Paris to Timbuktu in 1986; or sign the kids up for a ‘how to be a sports commentator’ or Olympic Games workshop (€5).
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Musée de l'Histoire de France
Early 18th-century Hôtel de Rohan-Soubise also contains the Musée de l’Histoire de France. The museum contains antique furniture and 18th-century paintings but primarily documents – everything from medieval incunabula and letters written by Joan of Arc to the wills of Louis XIV and Napoleon. The ceiling and walls of the interior are extravagantly painted and gilded in the rococo style; look out for the Cabinet des Singes, a room filled with frescoes of playful, cheeky monkeys painted by Christophe Huet between 1749 and 1752.
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Musée Dapper
This fantastic museum of sub-Saharan African and Caribbean art collected and exhibited by the nonprofit Dapper Foundation (in a 16th-century hôtel particulier with wonderful 21st-century add-ons) stages a couple of major exhibitions each year. The collection consists mostly of carved wooden figurines and masks, which famously influenced the work of Picasso, Braque and Man Ray. The ever-active auditorium sponsors African and Caribbean cultural events year-round – from concerts and storytelling to films and marionette performances.
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Musée de la Vie Romantique
One of our favourite small museums in Paris, the Museum of the Romantic Life is in a splendid location at the lovely Hôtel Scheffer-Renan in the centre of the district once known as ‘New Athens’. The museum, at the end of a film-worthy cobbled lane, is devoted to the life and work of Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin Baronne (1804–76) – better known to the world as George Sand – and her intellectual circle of friends and is full of paintings, objets d’art and personal effects. Don’t miss the tiny but delightful garden.
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Musée Galliera de la Mode de la Ville de Paris
The Fashion Museum of the City of Paris, housed in the 19th-century Palais Galliera, warehouses some 90,000 outfits and accessories – from canes and umbrellas to fans and gloves – from the 18th century to the present day and exhibits them along with items borrowed from collections abroad offering tremendously successful temporary exhibitions. The sumptuous Italianate palace and gardens dating from the mid-19th century are worth a visit in themselves. The museum is closed for renovation until mid 2012.
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Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
The permanent collection at the city’s modern art museum displays works representative of just about every major artistic movement of the 20th and nascent 21st centuries: Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, and so on up through video installations. While it merits a peek – you’ll find works by Modigliani, Matisse, Braque and Soutine here – the permanent collection is nowhere near the level of the Centre Pompidou. There is one jewel of a room though, containing several gorgeous canvases from Dufy and Bonnard.
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Musée National Eugène Delacroix
The Eugène Delacroix Museum, in a courtyard off a leafy ‘square’, was the romantic artist’s home and studio at the time of his death in 1863, and contains a collection of his oil paintings, watercolours, pastels and drawings. If you want to see his major works, such as Liberty Leading the People, pay a visit to the Musée du Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay; here you’ll find many of his more intimate works (eg An Unmade Bed, 1828) and his paintings of Morocco.
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Grande Galerie de l'Évolution
The highlight of theMusée National d’Histoire Naturelle for kids is the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution with imaginative exhibits on evolution and humankind’s effect on the global ecosystem. Rare specimens of endangered and extinct species dominate the Salle des Espèces Menacées et des Espèces Disparues (Hall of Threatened and Extinct Species) on level 2, while the Salle de Découverte (Room of Discovery) on level 1 houses kid-friendly interactive exhibits.
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Musée de la Poste
Marketed as L’Adresse (the Address), Montparnasse’s surprisingly contemporary Postal Museum delves into travel and exploration with its bevy of inspired temporary exhibitions. The main collection – the history of the French postal service – is spread across several rooms on several floors and is equally impressive. Upon departure, don’t miss the shop selling every imaginable French stamp, from Harry Potter designs to romantic red heart-shaped stamps.
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Musée Atelier Zadkine
The Musée Atelier Zadkine covers the life and work of Russian cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967), who arrived in Paris in 1908, and lived and worked in this cottage for almost 40 years. Zadkine produced an enormous catalogue of sculptures made from clay, stone, bronze and wood: one room displays figures he sculpted in contrasting walnut, pear, ebony, acacia, elm and oak. The occasional temporary exhibition commands a token admission fee.
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Musée du Parfum
If the art of perfume-making entices, stop by this collection of copper distillery vats and antique flacons and test your nose on a few basic scents (how many can you identify correctly?). It’s run by the perfumerie Fragonard and located in a beautiful old hôtel particulier; free guided visits are available in multiple languages. Another branch is a short distance south, in the Théâtre-Musée des Capucines.
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Musée Cernuschi
The Cernuschi Museum, renovated and its exhibition space redefined and enlarged in recent years, houses the city of Paris’ Musée des Arts de l’Asie (Asian Arts Museum). In essence it’s a collection of ancient Chinese art (funerary statues, bronzes, ceramics) and some works from Japan assembled during an 1871–73 world tour by the Milan banker and philanthropist Henri Cernuschi (1821–96), who settled in Paris before the unification of Italy.
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Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
The Hunting & Nature Museum may sound like an oxymoron to the politically correct, but in France, where hunting is a very big deal, to show your love for nature is to go out and shoot something – or so it would seem. The delightful Hôtel Guénégaud (1651) is positively crammed with weapons, paintings, sculpture and objets d’art related to hunting and, of course, lots and lots of trophies – horns, antlers, heads.
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Musée Bourdelle
The Bourdelle Museum contains monumental bronzes in the house and workshop where sculptor Antoine Bourdelle (1861–1929), a pupil of Rodin, lived and worked. The three sculpture gardens are particularly lovely and impart a flavour of belle époque and post-WWI Montparnasse. The museum usually has a temporary exhibition going on alongside its permanent collection (free on the rare occasion there’s no exhibition).
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