The museum is housed in the old Orsay railway station, destroyed during the Paris Commune and reused as a pavilion for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. One of the reasons why you can't miss the D'Orsay, the building soon came to prominence as an example of the characteristic architecture of the new century, with new materials such as iron and glass.
As a museum, it opened its doors in December 1986 with a Western art and culture collection covering the period between 1848 and 1914 . Its strong point is the collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, although it also has an outstanding photographic selection and works related to architecture.
The three floors of the museum house some of the most representative paintings of realism, along with paintings by Manet, Monet or Cezanne and works by Impressionists and Post-Impressionists (Degas, Millet, Renoir, Pissarro, Latour, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat or Derain). We must also highlight paintings from previous years such as works of Ingres and Delacroix . Not to be missed is a visit to Courbet's The Origin of the World, a painting that caused quite a stir due to its explicit depiction of the female sex; Millet's Angelus, a realistic testimony to the harsh life of 19th-century peasants; one of Van Gogh's striking portraits or Renoir's carefree Moulin de la Gallette Dance, a remarkable example of idle bourgeois life.
If you ended up very tired of the mammoth Louvre, this is a much more affordable museum . You cannot miss the views from the terrace on the fifth floor. Open from Tuesday to Sunday.
Map: See map
Address: 62 rue de Lille, Paris See map
Telephone: 00 33 1040 49 48 14
Price: Normal rate: €9, reduced: €5.30
Schedule: Tue-Sun: from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 9:45 p.m.
Guy: Museums and art galleries
Official Web: Go to the web
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