The Best Museums & Art Galleries in Île-de-France – Mus3ums

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Île-de-France / France

Île-de-France ; literally "Island of France") is the most populous of the 18 regions of France. It is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the Région Parisienne because it includes the city of Paris. Île-de-France is densely populated and economically important: it covers only 12,012 square kilometres but has an official estimated population of 12,278,210 , and accounts for 31% of French gross domestic product .The region is made up of eight administrative departments: Paris, Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Seine-et-Marne, Val-de-Marne, Val-d'Oise and Yvelines. It was created as the "District of the Paris Region" in 1961. In 1976, its status was aligned with the French administrative regions that were created in 1972, it was renamed after the historic province of Île-de-France. Residents are sometimes referred to as Franciliens, an administrative word created in the 1980s. The GDP of the region in 2018 was €734 billion . It has the highest per-capita GDP among regions in France and the third-highest of regions in the European Union. In 2018, almost all of the twenty-eight French companies listed in the Fortune Global 500 had their headquarters in the Paris Region.Besides the landmarks of Paris, the region has many important historic sites, including the Palace of Versailles and the Palace of Fontainebleau, as well as the most-visited tourist attraction in France, Disneyland Paris. The poverty rate in Île-de-France was 15.9% in 2015, compared with 12.3% in 2006. The region is also increasingly unequal. Housing prices have pushed the less affluent outside Paris.

Île-de-France / France

The Louvre ), or the Louvre Museum ), is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement . Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters . In 2019, the Louvre received 9.6 million visitors, making it the most visited museum in the world.The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as the Louvre castle in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

Île-de-France / France

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. 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. Musée d'Orsay had more than 3.6 million visitors in 2019.

Île-de-France / France

The Petit Palais is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle , it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts . The Petit Palais is located across from the Grand Palais on Avenue Nicolas II, today Avenue Winston-Churchill. The other façades of the building face the Seine and Avenue des Champs-Elysees.The Petit Palais is one of 14 museums of the City of Paris that have been incorporated since January 1, 2013, in the public corporation Paris Musées. It has been listed since 1975 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.

Bibliothèque nationale de France

Île-de-France / France

The Bibliothèque nationale de France is the national library of France, located in Paris. It is the national repository of all that is published in France and also holds extensive historical collections.

Île-de-France / France

The Musée Hébert is a museum located in the Hôtel de Montmorency-Bours at 85, rue du Cherche-Midi, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. It has been closed since 2004 for renovations. The museum is housed within the Petit-Montmorency, constructed in 1743 by the Comte de Montmorency, and former home of academic painter Ernest Hébert . After his adopted son's death in 1974, the building became state property and opened as a museum in 1984. Since 2004, the museum Hébert has been affiliated with the Musée d’Orsay, and indefinitely closed for renovations. The museum contains collections of Hébert's work, furniture, decorative items, souvenirs, and photographs, set within rooms almost unchanged since the 18th century. His paintings include portraits of literary critic Jules Lemaître, and two noted grandes horizontales, La Païva and Madame de Loynes.

Musée Carnavalet

Île-de-France / France

The Musée Carnavalet in Paris is dedicated to the history of the city. The museum occupies two neighboring mansions: the Hôtel Carnavalet and the former Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. On the advice of Baron Haussmann, the civil servant who transformed Paris in the latter half of the 19th century, the Hôtel Carnavalet was purchased by the Municipal Council of Paris in 1866; it was opened to the public in 1880. By the latter part of the 20th century, the museum was full to capacity. The Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau was annexed to the Carnavalet and opened to the public in 1989.Carnavalet Museum is one of the 14 City of Paris' Museums that have been incorporated since January 1, 2013 in the public institution Paris Musées. It's closed for renovation until spring 2021.

Musée Marmottan Monet

Île-de-France / France

Musée Marmottan Monet is located at 2, rue Louis Boilly in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and features over three hundred Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, including his 1872 Impression, Sunrise. It is the largest collection of his works. The museum also contains works by Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and others. It also houses the Wildenstein Collection of illuminated manuscripts and the Jules and Paul Marmottan collection of Napoleonic era art and furniture. Marmottan Museum's fame is the result of a donation in 1966 by Michel Monet, Claude's second son and only heir.The nearest métro station is La Muette, on line 9.

Musée de l'Orangerie

Île-de-France / France

The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Gardens next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as the permanent home of eight large Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet, and also contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Alfred Sisley, Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, and others.

Centre Pompidou

Île-de-France / France

The Centre Pompidou , also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil, and the Marais. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of Richard Rogers, Su Rogers, Renzo Piano, along with Gianfranco Franchini.It houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information , a vast public library; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe; and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg . It is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building, and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. As of 2006, the Centre Pompidou has had over 180 million visitors since 1977 and more than 5,209,678 visitors in 2013, including 3,746,899 for the museum.The sculpture Horizontal by Alexander Calder, a free-standing mobile that is 7.6 m tall, was placed in front of the Centre Pompidou in 2012.