Petit Palais

The Petit Palais is the City of Paris fine arts museum (Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris), on Avenue Winston-Churchill in the 8th arrondissement, opposite the Grand Palais. Its permanent collections, from antiquity to the early 20th century, are free, and the 1900 building and garden café make it a strong stop for anyone near the Champs-Élysées.

Charles Girault's palace for the 1900 exhibition

The architect Charles Girault designed the building for the Exposition Universelle of 1900. Construction began on 10 October 1897 and finished in April 1900. It lines up with the Pont Alexandre III and Les Invalides across the Seine. After the exhibition it stayed in use, and in 1902 it became the city's fine arts museum.

The architecture is a large part of the visit: a gilded entrance gate, a domed entrance hall, painted domes and mosaics, spiral staircases and a semicircular inner garden framed by a colonnade, with a café that offers a calm break.

Dutuit antiquities and Paris 1900 decorative arts

The Dutuit collection, given by two brothers, brings Greek and Roman antiquities, medieval objects, drawings and paintings. Other rooms hold icons, Renaissance works and Paris 1900 decorative arts and furniture. The 19th-century rooms are a highlight, with Courbet's large canvases, including Firemen Running to a Fire, as well as paintings by Rembrandt, Monet and Cézanne and sculpture by Rodin. Temporary exhibitions run in separate galleries through the year.

Tuck furniture, Rubens to Delacroix, and Rodin

Besides the Dutuit gift, the Tuck collection brings 18th-century French furniture, and the city's painting collection runs from Rubens, Poussin and Fragonard to Delacroix. Sculpture includes works by Rodin, Maillol and Carpeaux. Since 1 January 2013 the Petit Palais has been one of fourteen City of Paris museums run by the public body Paris Musées. It is one of the city's most visited museums, with about 1.19 million visitors in 2023.