Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay is an art museum in Paris. The building was built in 1900 and was first used as a railway station. In 1986, it became a museum, and it is still very famous today.

The museum exhibits artworks of the 19th century including Impressionist paintings. The Impressionist paintings include works by Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Manet, and Van Gogh. That's why the Orsay is called the 'Impressionism museum'.

The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. Its extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces is the largest in the world. It features work by such painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, Van Gogh and many others.

Orsay Museum, seen from the right bank of the Seine river

Collection

Paintings: major painters and works represented

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres — 4 paintings (the main collection of his paintings is in the Louvre)
Eugène Delacroix — 5 paintings (the main collection of his paintings is in the Louvre)
Théodore Chassériau — 5 paintings (the main collection of his paintings is in the Louvre)
Gustave Courbet — 48 paintings including The Artist's Studio, A Burial at Ornans, Young Man Sitting, L'Origine du monde
Jean-François Millet — 27 paintings including Spring, The Gleaners
Honoré Daumier — 8 paintings
Eugène Boudin — 33 paintings including Trouville Beach
Camille Pissarro — 46 paintings including White Frost
Édouard Manet — 34 paintings including Olympia, The Balcony, Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets, The Luncheon on the Grass
Berthe Morisot — 9 paintings
Edgar Degas — 43 paintings including The Parade, also known as Race Horses in front of the Tribunes, The Bellelli Family, The Tub, Portrait of Edouard Manet, Portraits, At the Stock Exchange, L’Absinthe
Paul Cézanne — 56 paintings including Apples and Oranges
Claude Monet — 86 paintings (the main collection of his paintings is in the Musée Marmottan Monet) including The Saint-Lazare Station, The Rue Montorgueil in Paris. Celebration of June 30, 1878, Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars, Rouen Cathedral. Harmony in Blue, Blue Water Lilies
Alfred Sisley — 46 paintings including Inondation at Port-Marly
Pierre-Auguste Renoir — 81 paintings including Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre
Ferdinand Hodler — Der Holzfäller (The Woodcutter)
Gustave Caillebotte — 7 paintings including The Floor Planers
Édouard Detaille — The Dream
Vincent van Gogh — 24 paintings including Self Portrait, portrait of his friend Eugene Boch, The Siesta, The Church at Auvers, View from the Chevet, The Italian Woman, Starry Night Over the Rhone, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Bedroom in Arles
Paul Gauguin — 24 paintings including Tahitian Women on the Beach
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — 18 paintings
Paul Signac — 16 paintings including Women at the Well
Georges-Pierre Seurat — 19 paintings including The Circus
Edouard Vuillard — 70 paintings
Henri Rousseau — 3 paintings
Pierre Bonnard — 60 paintings including The Chequered Blouse
André Derain — Charing Cross Bridge, also known as Westminster Bridge
Edvard Munch — 1 painting
Gustav Klimt — 1 painting
Piet Mondrian — 2 paintings
James McNeill Whistler — 3 paintings including Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, also known as Whistler's Mother