Inside Musée d’Orsay
Immerse yourself in the glorious world of European art, as you explore one of the most stunning, and surprising, galleries in France.
Highlights
- -Enjoy direct private door-to-door transport.
- -Discover how Gare d'Orsay became a museum.
- -View Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces.
- -Explore French art from 1848 to 1914.
Gallery
About this experience
The driver will pick up clients from their hotel or residence.
The guide will greet the client as they exit their private car. The guide will begin with illustrating the history of what used to be a train station turned in one of the most famous museum housing some of the historic painters such as Van Gogh, Monet, Paul Cézanne and much more. As they enter the Musée d’Orsay, the guide will continue through a path of heritage, history, unique creativity and past empires. The Musée d’Orsay - It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900.
The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe. The museum building was originally a railway station, Gare d'Orsay, constructed for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and finished in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle to the design of three architects: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. It was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939.
By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services. After 1939 it was used for suburban services and part of it became a mailing centre during World War II. It was then used as a set for several films, such as Kafka's The Trial adapted by Orson Welles, and as a haven for the Renaud–Barrault Theatre Company and for auctioneers, while the Hôtel Drouot was being rebuilt. In 1970, permission was granted to demolish the station but Jacques Duhamel, Minister for Cultural Affairs, ruled against plans to build a new hotel in its stead. The station was put on the supplementary list of Historic Monuments and finally listed in 1978. The suggestion to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museum of France. The idea was to build a museum that would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at the Georges Pompidou Centre. The plan was accepted by Georges Pompidou and a study was commissioned in 1974.
