Installed in a converted 19thcentury railroad station, the Musée d’Orsay boasts the world’s largest collection of art from the period 1848 –1904. Admired for its fine Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collections, it also devotes a lot of space to the earlier Realists and the formerly reviled 19th-century academic and “Salon” masters. There are superb selections of Degas, Manet, Courbet, Monet, Renoir, Millet, Cézanne, Bonnard and Vuillard, and some fine Gauguins, Van Goghs and Seurats, but these have to contend with poor lighting and an intrusive stone decor. A great ensemble of late Monets is to be found at the Musée Marmottan-Claude Monet and another at the Musée de l’Orangerie, including Monet’s last great waterlily murals (1920–1925).
Three artists’ studios and homes are now museums of their life and work. The Musée Rodin, in an attractive 18thcentury mansion and garden, offers a complete survey of the master’s sculptures, drawings and paintings. The Musée Delacroix, set in a garden near St-Germain-des- Prés, has sketches, prints and oils by the Romantic artist. The Musée Gustave Moreau, in an oppressive 19th-century town house, has an extraordinary collection of intricately painted canvases of legendary femmes fatales and dying youths. The Petit Palais has an interesting collection of 19th-century paintings with four major Courbets, including The Sleep.
As the international center of the avant-garde from 1900 to 1940, Paris has a great concentration of modern painting and sculpture. The Pompidou Centre houses the Musée National d’Art Moderne, covering from 1905 to the present. The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, in the elegant 1930s Palais de Tokyo also has an excellent collection, including Delaunays, Bonnards and Fauvist paintings. The Musée Picasso, in a lovely 17th-century mansion, has the world’s largest Picasso collection. It also has his own personal collection of the work of his contemporaries. Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Utrillo and late Derains make up the collection of 1920s art dealer Paul Guillaume on display at the Musée de l’Orangerie. For modern sculpture, the small Musée Zadkine has Cubist work by a minor school whose leading light was Ossip Zadkine. The Musée Antoine Bourdelle and the Musée Maillol house work by these two sculptors, who were both influenced by Rodin, in very different ways.