Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon)

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon is the city's fine arts museum and one of the largest in France, filling the south side of Place des Terreaux in Lyon's 1st arrondissement beside the City Hall. It covers Egyptian antiquities to twentieth-century painting in about 70 rooms of a former abbey, and suits art lovers and anyone who wants a long, calm visit in the centre of the Presqu'île, part of the UNESCO-listed Historic Site of Lyon.

A Benedictine abbey turned museum

The building was the abbey of the Benedictine nuns of Saint-Pierre. In the seventeenth century its baroque refectory was decorated under the direction of Thomas Blanchet, with paintings by Louis Cretey, and a grand staircase was added around 1680. The museum was founded there in 1801 and its first room opened on 23 November 1803. A renovation from 1989 to 1998 by Jean-Philippe Dubois and Jean-Michel Wilmotte gained 4,500 square metres; the museum now covers about 14,800 square metres, with some 6,900 square metres of galleries.

Egyptian antiquities, Veronese, Rubens and Monet

The departments cover antiquities, with a large Egyptian section, paintings from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, sculpture, decorative arts, graphic arts and a coin and medal cabinet. Painters on show include Veronese, Rubens, Rembrandt and Monet, with Lyon painters well represented. The modern collections, including works by Gauguin and Picasso, are not on view in late 2026: a selection is shown in the exhibition Atelier dei moderni at the Venaria Reale near Turin. A Masterpieces audio tour in six languages is free online or €1 at the desk.

Musée sentimental and the Biennale

Musée sentimental, on the third floor from 11 September 2026 to 14 March 2027, brings together works by André Breton, Daniel Spoerri, Joseph Cornell, Annette Messager and Marcel Duchamp with pieces from the macLYON collection. From 19 September to 13 December 2026 the garden hosts works by Susan Philipsz, Luz Broto and Gideon Horvàth for the Lyon Biennale, free to enter.

The cloister garden

The former cloister at the heart of the abbey is now a garden of trees and statues around a basin topped by an ancient sarcophagus. It follows the museum's opening hours and is a quiet place to sit in the middle of the city.