THE PETIT PALAIS
Paris’ Other Fine Art Museum
The
Petit Palais (small palace) officially the Musée de
Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, unlike its much more famous
and familiar French art gallery museum brother, The Louvre, never actually
was a palace,
at least
in the royal sense, as it was born well after the revolution which turned
France into the land of egalité and fraternité. Built in
1900 for the Paris World's Fair ten years after the 1889 fair that brought
Eiffel's iconic Tower to Paris as a monument to the revolt, the Petit
Palais became the city’s
official Museum of Fine Arts in 1902.
As
its name implies, the Petit Palais is smaller and more intimate than
the Louvre, and joyfully far
less
crowded. An art lovers visit here is relaxed and maybe a little bit
more fun, too. More tlike looking at art in a mansion living-room rather
than museum. The building itself is a magnificently beautiful structure
of classic
revival
architecture
with
grand halls
and staircases of parti-colored marble and parquet. Unlike the Louvre,
whose collections do not include the more famous French artists of the
19th Century Impressionist period (see Collections
of the Louvre), at
the Petit Palais you can find Monet, Renoir, Delacroix and Cezanne 
alongside
the Rembrandts of the Renaissance,
Medieval religious icons and objects d’art from antiquity to the
early 20th Century “beaux-arts” grand
Parisian style. Here you can also find master art furnishings in a palace
like setting, and some more whimsical displays, like a artist as he might
be workjing on his masterpiece in the Franceh countryside. The beautiful
court garden (Le Jardin de Petit Palace) a relaxing inner sanctum, has
been
re-opened
after a
long
renovation, with statues of nude Diana's among the fauna and architectural
frills.
Minus
the tourist crowds, also unlike the Louvre, admission to the Petit
Palais is our favorite price - free, except for
the special temporary exhibitions. The museum offers
lectures, workshops and story-telling programs for adults and children,
open every day from 10am to 6pm. Entrance to the museum is from the pure
photo opportunity grand stairway on Avenue Winston Churchill, directly
across from the Grand Palais between the Seine River where the Pont Alexandre
bridge crosses from the Invalides (See Napoleon
Tomb and Army Museum)
and the Champs-Elysée. The closest metro stop is the Champs-Elysée
Clemenceau station. ©Bargain
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