Orangerie Museum

The Orangerie building, facing the Jeu de Paume, was built in 1852 to shelter the orange trees in the Tuileries gardens in winter.

This museum is famous for Monet’s Water Lilies, exhibited at French president Clemenceau’s suggestion in 1927, making it a “Sistine Chapel of Impressionism” (André Masson).

 The museum is also dedicated to the painting of the late 19th and early 20th centuries gathered in  the Paul Guillaume collection featuring works by most of the great names of the period (Renoir, Matisse, Derain, Utrillo, Gauguin…)

Jacquemart-André Museum

The Jacquemart-André museum presents the collections assembled in the 19th century by Édouard André and Nélie Jacquemart, in a Second Empire-style townhouse. The main attraction is the hotel’s magnificent salons, rooms and apartments, restored in the sumptuous style of the period. The museum’s collection is remarkable. Visitors can admire works by 18th-century French painters (Boucher, notably La Toilette et le Sommeil de Vénus, Chardin, Fragonard), but also marvels of Italian art (part of the museum is dedicated to this, “the museum of Italian art”, created  by collectors) and European art. Highlights include Canaletto’s St. Mark’s Square, Rembrandt’s Pilgrims to Emmaus, Boticelli’s Madonna and Child, Uccello’s St. George Slaying the Dragon and a Tiepolo fresco in the dining room.

Cluny Museum | National museum of Middle Ages

Cluny museum is first and foremost worth a visit for the premises that house it: the Hôtel de Cluny is a medieval mansion built in the flamboyant Gothic style from the late 15th century onwards. At the time, it belonged to the abbots of the powerful Burgundian Order of Cluny. A remarkable chapel, whose only pillar is the departure of numerous ribs divided into four ogival vaults, can still be seen today. The hotel’s adjoining Roman baths are home to the preserved frigidarium, featuring the famous gallo-roman Nautes pillar. The museum itself, opened in the mid-19th century, boasts an extensive collection of medieval artworks and objects, including masterpieces such as the Chess Player stained-glass window, the Poissy angel figures, a 13th-century statue of Adam and, of course, the famous 15th-century Lady of the Unicorn tapestry.