The Top Museums in Paris: Immersed in Art

To help you out in your venture, we have listed out the ten best Paris Museums you need to visit when you are here after a careful study of the most visited and even relatively unknown gems. Here we bring out the best amongst the lot and explain the exclusivity of each of the selected Paris Museums to simplify your job of visiting some of the best museums while you are in the city.

Louvre Museum which has the largest art collection in the world with around 38,000 artifacts, should be on top of every visitor’s bucket list of museums in Paris to visit. This building is on the banks of the River Seine and is easily identifiable by its majestic glass pyramid in the center of the main courtyard, called cour Napolean in French. The Louvre Museum, which opened in the year 1793 with just 537 paintings, has built an astounding inventory over the centuries. The enormous Louvre Museum has eight curatorial departments arranged on different themes housed in the 73,000 square meters majestic building. The exhibits range from antiquities to modern artworks, with the oldest collection, the Statue of Ain Ghazal, believed to date back to an astonishing 9000 years.

The eight departments under which the collections are grouped are:

i. Egyptian Antiquities: The main attraction here is the Sphinx, apart from numerous other great works of art.

ii. Greek and Roman Art Department: Its collections date back from 4 century BCE to 6th century AD.

iii. Near Eastern Antiquities: It holds the collections from Africa to the Indian Ocean with exhibits covering 9000 years of civilization.

iv. Paintings: This is the most visited section where some of the most famous works amongst the 5,500 collections of European paintings of the 800 years- from the 13^th to the 20^th centuries are on display. This includes exhibits from French, Italian, other European, British and American painters. As you might have guessed, the Italian section has Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, apart from the huge floor-to-ceiling painting by Paolo Veronese, The Wedding Feast at Cana.

v. Islamic Art: This section houses the largest Islamic collection in Europe with around 18,000 treasures from Europe to India spread over three floors.

vi. Sculptures: FEW of the best pieces of work on display here include the Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave, which are the unfinished beautiful pieces by Michelangelo, Venus de Milo which is a beautiful 6 ft 8 in statue of feminine beauty of Venus, the 10 ft tall Nike of Samothrace which is one of the most visited sculpture here in the Louvre Museum. vii. Decorative Arts: It has many classy and dazzling works of art on display, including the glittering French crown jewels.

viii. Prints and Drawings: The collections here are not exposed to weather and are displayed only during special occasions.

You can visit the museum between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. The museum is closed on Tuesdays, it has longer opening hours on two days, Wednesday and Friday. It is closed on Jan 1^st, May 1^st, May 8^th, and Dec 25^th. Tickets are priced between Euro 15 and 17.

This is the second oldest museum in Paris and located on the west of Louvre. Musee des Arts Decoratifs has the largest collection of decorative arts, design and fashion in the world with around 150,000 exhibits. The exhibits are categorized based on themes. You can see French furniture, some stunningly beautiful and delicate tableware, chatelaines of medieval royalty and Chinese head jewelry. For the normal visitors, ten period-inspired rooms which showcase the French way of living from the 14^th to the 20^th century is a huge draw. Tickets to the museum are priced between Euro 8 and 11. This museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Other than the collections of artifacts, this museum also offers charming spaces for arranging private parties or business conventions, marketing events for a gathering of up to 300. Outside exhibition space can hold more people. It also has a lovely dining area. The museum also houses a library which is a favorite place for students, researchers in ancient art and others who can access its vast collection of material.

This is the second most visited museum in Paris, with around 3 million visitors every year. You will find out the reasons for its popularity with such a large number of visitors when you see the exhibits in Musee d’Orsay. It has a vast and some of the finest collection of impressionist art in the form of paintings, drawings, and sculptures. It exhibits cover about 60 years of exquisite artworks between the18^th and 19^th centuries not found elsewhere in other museums. You will also find this a very pleasant place to visit as this is comparatively smaller one than Louvre and you need not worry about missing out on many important works as you might end up doing in Louvre. This 35,000 sq/m gorgeous museum has a big, lovely collection of impressionist and expressionist masterpieces from Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Courbet, Renoir, Paul Gaugin, and other modern artists. It has a collection of 165 works of Monet, the highest such collection of his paintings anywhere in the world. This museum is closed on Mondays, and the tickets are priced between Euro 11 and 14.

The Centre Pompidou museum structure is built based on a radical inside-out boiler house design which won the design competition for this modern art museum which opened in 1977. Its design created a huge controversy at that time as it has all AC ducts, pipes, lifts and escalators on the outside to create more space and flexibility inside for exhibits. This well-known landmark in Paris holds an astonishing and breath-taking collection of 100,000 modern artworks from 1905, the largest in Europe, and second only to MOMA in New York. However, only a small number of the artworks are on display on any one day. This is a multicultural complex which houses a museum, cinema, library, and concert space. The display in level five is for the period 1905 to 1960, and the post-1960 exhibits are on display in level four. You must visit the historic section of level five to understand the exciting gradual evolution of art from the primitive to the modern era. The museum also has very interesting exhibits of tribal art, folk art, drawings, and photography. The tickets for the museum and exhibits cost between Euro 11 and 14, with every first Sunday being open for free entry.

This museum is somewhat overshadowed by its big brother across the street, the Grand Palais; both built for the World-fair in Paris in 1900. It is located in the 8^th arrondissement of Paris. The Petit Palais architecture is designed in a way to pay tribute to the city of Paris and its rich heritage of art. It houses around 1300 works as permanent collection from antiquity to the early 20^th century for which entry is free to all visitors. The collections include some breath-taking paintings of Delacroix, Monet, Courbet, Cezanne, and others. You can also see lovely exhibits of sculpture, jewelry, knickknacks, furniture, and delicate ceramic pieces. You will find this green building is lit entirely by natural light and that it has a lovely garden where you can sit and enjoy a pastry with coffee. The Museum is closed on Mondays and open for extra two hours till 8:00 PM on Thursdays.

It is located in the center of Paris in the 7^th arrondissement on the left bank of the River Seine and is dedicated to the indigenous art and culture. Musee du Quai Branly has a huge collection of works from non-European places like Africa, America, Asia, and Oceana, making it the museum of choice for those involved with the study of all civilizations around the world. It has around 200 years of rich collection of works from the Neolithic period to showcase these civilizations. This museum which opened in 2006 has a non-conventional open design with no physical barriers and railings to reflect the openness which it represents artistically. Even the garden here has no gates or lawns and barriers; it is a sort of lovely jungle. This museum has around 450,000 objects, 700,000 iconographical pieces, and around 200,000 reference works, making it the biggest European public institution dedicated to the study, preservation, and promotion of non-European arts and civilizations. This is an extremely interesting museum which you must visit while in Paris. The tickets are prices at Euro 7 and 10 each for temporary and permanent collections and Euro 9 and 12 for a combined visit. The museum also has space for hosting private events like concerts and shows, and it also holds a workshop to educate people.

This is a museum with a difference which you must visit, especially if you are interested in the life and art of people during the medieval period. Musee de Cluny is located in the center of Paris in a 13^th-century townhouse to give it a realistic setting with its lovely medieval architecture. The Museum’s prized exhibit is a 15th-century tapestry, The Lady and the Unicorn, much valued for its splendid colors and mysterious symbolism. Romanesque and Gothic sculptures and stained-glass windows from the saint Chappell are part of its awesome collections which also include around 2300 paintings from those periods. The museum is closed on Tuesdays. The best time to visit is between noon and 2:00 PM or after 3:30 PM.

This museum is located in the beautiful Tuileries garden offering much-valued lung space to the visitors who come here. Musee de l’Orangerie has an exquisite collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings from very famous painters. The collections include the famous Water Lilies, more famously known as Nympheas, from Claude Monet. The museum houses eight of the water lilies out of the incredible 250 paintings of garden flowers done by Monet during his last 30 years, some of which he did while having a cataract. You might be interested to know that a few of such paintings from elsewhere have been auctioned for huge sums in recent years. The other works in the collection include those of the master-painters Cézanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Renoir Matisse, and Modigliani.

Musee Picasso was founded in 1974 after the death of the master painter with the thousands of paintings he and his family so generously bequeathed to the state after his death. This is another one in our list of must-visit museums in Paris, and you will thoroughly appreciate the reason behind the great painter’s fame before coming out of the museum. Around 5000 of Pablo Picasso’s works and much more of archived pieces are part of the huge inventory of this museum which is housed in a private mansion. Some of the masterpieces on display include Self-portrait, La Celestina, Man with Guitar and Memento Mori. This museum is closed on Mondays. The tickets are priced at Euro 11 and 14, and you can have an audio guide at Euro 5.

This museum is dedicated to the French Sculptor Augustine Rodin who was one of the finest French artists. Musee Rodin was opened in 1919, about 2 years after his death. The high ceiling of this former home allows an appropriate display space for Rodin’s works, and the garden acts as a perfect natural surrounding for his bronze masterpieces like The Gates of Hell and The Thinker.

With the iconic museums in Paris, attracting a large number of visitors throughout the year, every bit of information with proper planning can be very helpful to skip-the-lines and save on time. The first trick you need to employ is to book sufficiently in advance before your planned visit. All museums allow online bookings to make your visit lesson the wait times. Next possible plan is to go with some guided tours which are available to take you through many of the museums, especially the Louvre which is so massive that you might wonder if even one full day is sufficient to reasonably cover it. Such a guided tour can minimize your waiting time by taking you through various rooms to ensure that you get optimum time on each exhibit while seeing to it that you don’t miss out on famous masterpieces. There is another extremely important advice to assist in your skip-the-line strategy, which is about buying the Paris insider Pass. This pass allows you unhindered access to 60 Paris museums including some in this list and allows you unlimited free rides on the Paris public transport like the metro, RER, bus lines, and tramways. Besides this, the pass also allows free rides on Montmartre funicular which carries passengers from the foot of Montmartre to its summit and comes bundled with many other advantages. It costs between Euro 135 and Euro 245 for a 2 day to 6-day adult pass, with the corresponding child pass costing between Euro 40 and 80. With this amazingly attractive offer, you and your family and friends can actually end up saving big not only on time due to skip-the-line feature but also quite a bit of money. Moreover, this pass is valid for one year covering any last-minute change of plans.

The Paris Museums are worth visiting and should be on top of your bucket list of places to visit when you are in the city. With such a large number of visitors throughout the year visiting the museums and getting tickets can be a hectic task, so you should always plan your visit and buy your tickets in advance.