MUSEUMS and EXHIBITIONS

“The museums are there to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, as they spark in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation.”

“Les musées sont là pour apprendre l’histoire de l’art et quelque chose en plus; car, s’ils suscitent, chez les faibles, des désirs d’imitation, ils donnent, aux forts, des moyens d’émancipation.” – Edgar Degas

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Museum Search

Musee du Louvre Search the Entire Collection	Musee du Louvre Departement des Arts Graphiques	JOCONDE Catalogue des Collections des Musees de France	ENSBA Catalogue des Collections de l’Ecole des Beaux Arts

 

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

Our Paris drawing programs (October to April only) always take time to visit current exhibitions at the Musee du Louvre and other Paris museums, and studio coursework often focuses on the subject matter of current exhibitions.

The costs of daily admission to the Musee du Louvre are not included in the price of tuition. Annual museum memberships allow free entry, for a cost between 15 and 80 euros per individual.

During each Intensive Course (Summer and Autumn only) in Argenton-Chateau (79), there are a variety of regional museums to visit within 2 hrs of Argenton-Chateau, for day-trips or for our “studio weekends” (Friday/Saturday).

Group reservations of 10 or more can benefit from a 30% discount on TGV train fares to Paris from Angers (as little as 60 euros roundtrip, per person).

Current and upcoming exhibitions in Paris as well as in museums near Argenton-Chateau can be found following the links below.

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Selected Museums in Paris

Musee du Louvre
Contains one of the most important collections of art in the world, including European drawings, paintings and sculptures (1100 to 1848); Near Eastern, Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, and objets d’art from the last 2000 years.

Musee d’Orsay
The collection was formed from mainly three sources:
– from the Louvre museum, for artists born after 1820 or coming to the fore during the Second Republic;
– from the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which since 1947 had been devoted to Impressionism;
– from the National Museum of Modern Art, which only kept works of artists born after 1870.

Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais
Built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900 (stone, glass and steel construction), it now hosts major national temporary exhibitions organised by the Reunion des Musees Nationaux, Association Francaise d’Action Artistique (AFAA) and the Delegation des Arts Plastiques (DAP).

Petit Palais – Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris
The Petit Palais collections present a rich and varied body of art, including: a fine collection of classical Greek, Etruscan and Roman art; the Cabal collection of Eastern Christian art; the Dutuit Collection of medieval and Renaissance paintings and objets d’art; the Tuck Collection of 18th century furniture; the City of Paris collection of paintings and sculpture from the 17th to the early 20th c; a massive archive of drawings, engravings, graphic arts, documents and photographs from these same periods.

Musee Maillol
The museum was established in 1995 by Dina Vierny, model for sculptor Aristide Maillol, and operated by the Fondation Dina Vierny. It presents both the work of Maillol (drawings, engravings, paintings, sculptures, decorative art, original plaster and terracotta) and Vierny’s large collection of Modern art (Rodin, Gauguin, Cezanne, Degas, Matisse, Picasso, Valadon, Dufy, Bonnard, Odilon Redon, Duchamp and more.) The Musee Maillol also welcomes traveling exhibitions of exceptional quality and interest to artists (“Tresors de Medicis”, “Pompeii”, etc).

Musee Jacquemart-André
is the most extraordinary private collection of art in Paris, rivalling the quality of the Louvre. It features some of the finest examples of Italian primitive and 18th c. art in France, including paintings, murals, sculpture, furniture and decorative arts. (Perugino, Bellini, Verrocchio, Della Robbia, Tiepolo, Vigee-Lebrun, Chardin, Boucher, J.L. David, etc)

ENSBA – École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts
The Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris inherited part of the collections of the Academie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture (founded 1648), which were extremely varied in nature. They included the archives and inventories of the Academie Royale, engravings of a number of works painted for admission to it, books and drawings presented to the Academies or projects submitted for their approval, models collected for teaching purposes, works which had won the annual Prix de Rome or the various monthly competitions, assorted objects, and so on.

Musee Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris
The Carnavalet Museum 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. It houses about 2,600 paintings, 20,000 drawings, 300,000 engravings, 150,000 photographs, 2,000 modern sculptures and 800 pieces of furniture, thousands of ceramics, decorations, models and reliefs, signs, thousands of coins and other historical items, as well as thousands of archeological fragments.

Chateau de Versailles
Starting in 1661, Charles LeBrun and three subsequent generations of artists of the Academie Royale decorated every room, ceiling, moulding, cornice, and door of the interior. The King’s Suite of the Grands Appartements du Roi et de la Reine (King’s and Queen’s State Apartments) include frescoes dedicated to Hercules, Venus, Diana, Mars, and Mercury. The opulence reaches its peak in the recently restored Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), a 75m-long ballroom with 17 huge mirrors on one side and, on the other, an equal number of windows looking out over the gardens.

Chateau de Chantilly / Musee Condé
The château’s art gallery, the Musée Condé, houses one of the finest collections of paintings in France after the Louvre, with special strength in French painting before 1850 and book illuminations of the 15th and 16th centuries. Exceptional works include Sassetta’s Mystic Marriage of St. Francis, Botticelli’s Autumn, Piero di Cosimo’s Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci, Raphael’s Three Graces and Madonna of Loreto, Guercino’s Pietà, 260 paintings and drawings by François and Jean Clouet, Pierre Mignard’s Portrait of Molière, Ingres’ Self-Portrait at 24 and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s Le concert champêtre, among many others.

Chateau de Fontainebleau
With over 1500 rooms at the heart of 130 acres of parkland and gardens, Fontainebleau is the only royal and imperial château to have been continuously inhabited for seven centuries. Its architecture, apartments, chapels, galleries, and gardens — as well as its massive collection of art and decorative art — offer an unparalleled view of French history and art history.

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Selected Regional Museums (including travel times from Argenton-Chateau)

Musee des Beaux Arts – Nantes (1.5 hrs)
Italian, Flemish and French schools; Modern and Contemporary art.

Musee des Beaux Arts – La Rochelle (1.5 hrs)
The Cathedral of La Rochelle also features major works by Bouguereau, including his The Flagellation of Christ, and Scenes from the Life of the Virgin.

Musee Jules Desbois – Parçay les Pins (1 hr)
Jules Desbois (1851-1935), a friend and colleague of Rodin and Camille Claudel, was one of the finest sculptors of his time. More than 100 drawings, maquettes and sculptures on display in the place of his birth.

Musee des Beaux Arts – Angers (1 hr)
More than 500 drawings, paintings and sculptures on display in a majestically renovated 17th c. building.

Musee David d’Angers (1 hr)
aka Pierre-Jean David (1788-1856) French sculptor, student of Jacques-Louis David.

Chateau de Oiron – Thouars (30 min)
A massive 16th century chateau, featuring a remarkably intact French Renaissance decorative and fresco cycle, based on The Iliad (Ecole de Fontainebleau). It now also houses an internationally ranked collection of contemporary art.