Musée des Beaux-Arts

Orléans’ fine-arts museum is a treat, with an excellent collection of Italian, Flemish and Dutch paintings (including works by Correggio, Velázquez and Bruegel) as well as a huge collection of work by French artists such as Léon Cogniet (1794–1880), Orléans-born Alexandre Antigna (1817–78) and Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), who spent some of his youth here. France's finest collection of pastels after the Louvre includes 18th-century works Maurice Quentin de la Tour and a self-portrait by Jean-Baptiste Chardin.