Musée d'Orsay Access to the permanent collections and the temporary exhibitions

What to expect

With nearly three million visitors per year, the Musée d'Orsay is among the most visited places in Paris. Housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition and listed as a historic monument in 1978, the Musée d'Orsay opened its doors in 1986. A superb Beaux-Arts style building, it is dedicated to 19th-century artists, especially pre-Impressionist and Impressionist painters. Visitors can rediscover with delight Pissarro, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Millet, and Degas. Don’t forget to admire the magnificent original clock that still adorns the main hall today.

Schedule

Ticket for the Musée d'Orsay

Entrance Tickets

Night visits to the Musée d'Orsay

Musée d'Orsay opening hours

Open every day except Mondays, from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Late opening until 9:45 p.m. on Thursdays

Please note: As the museum closes at 6:00 p.m., evacuation of the rooms must begin at 5:30 p.m. (9:15 p.m. on Thursdays).
Closing days: every Monday, May 1st, and December 25th.

See other current exhibitions in Paris

Access

• Entrance A: visitors without tickets
• Entrance B: adult groups with reservation
• Entrance C: visitors with tickets
• Entrance D: school groups with reservation

Avoid the queue for visitors without tickets. Go to Entrance C and present your ticket on your smartphone.

Practical information:

• Audio guides available in French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian.
• Visitors with reduced mobility: wheelchairs, folding seats, and strollers are available at the cloakroom.

Free admission

• For everyone: first Sunday of each month
• Under 18s
• 18–25-year-old nationals or long-term residents of a European Union country
• Teachers in French primary and secondary schools with a valid education pass (Pass Éducation)
• Visitors with disabilities and one accompanying person
• Job seekers
• Paris Museum Pass holders
• Carte Blanche members
• Members of the Société des Amis du Musée d'Orsay

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Musée d'Orsay collections

Level 0: around the Sculpture Alley (Carpeaux, Cordier...), you can discover, on the Seine side, the Barbizon School (Millet...), Courbet’s masterpieces, and the early works of Manet and Monet; on the Lille side, the academic movement of the 1850s–60s (Ingres, Delacroix...), Degas before 1870, the Symbolist Gallery (Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes...), and the Toulouse-Lautrec room.

Level 2: on the Seine side, Naturalism, foreign schools, decorative arts under the Third Republic, and French, Belgian, and Italian Art Nouveau; on the Lille side, Neo- and Post-Impressionist painting (Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat...) and the Nabis around 1900. You can reach the Amont Pavilion via the new footbridge to discover major decorative schemes and modern decorative arts (1905–1914). The Amont Pavilion: after the major modern decorative schemes on level 2, you will find on level 3 the Art Nouveau of Central, Northern, and Scandinavian Europe; on level 4, Austrian, British, and American Art Nouveau. Level 5 leads to the Impressionist Gallery.

Level 5: opening with Manet’s “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, the Impressionist Gallery offers a journey through the masterpieces of the movement from the late 1860s to 1900.

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A bit of history

Built at the end of the 19th century, the Gare d'Orsay was intended to bring visitors closer to the 1900 Universal Exhibition. Thanks to its beauty, it became the first of its pavilions. Located opposite the Louvre Palace and the Tuileries Garden, a few steps from the Grand Palais, a flagship of the 1900 Exhibition and situated on the banks of the Seine—the backbone of Paris—the Gare d'Orsay fulfilled its role until 1939. In 1945, after the war, it served as a reception center for prisoners of war returning from Germany, and also hosted General de Gaulle’s return to public life in 1958 during a memorable press conference.

However, this magnificent building nearly disappeared and was even threatened with demolition in the late 1960s. It was saved by a theatre company, which installed its stage under its vaults for six years. In 1978, the building was classified as a historic monument, and President Giscard d’Estaing decided to transform it into a museum of the 19th century. After eight years of work, the Musée d'Orsay was finally inaugurated on December 1st, 1986, by François Mitterrand. Today, the former railway station turned museum still proudly embraces its dual heritage.

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