The Luxembourg Museum

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The Cultural Policy of the Senate

In 2000, Christian Poncelet, President of the Senate, signed a new convention with the Culture Ministry entrusting the Senate with the management and events programming of the Musée du Luxembourg. The museum's exhibition program alternates between two major themes:

The Renaissance, in honor of Marie de Médicis to whom we owe the Palais du Luxembourg, and modern art, to evoke the museum's golden age between 1887 and 1937.

“Masterpieces of the Rau Collection” inaugurated a highly successful series of exibitions which has included: “Raphael, Grace and Beauty”; “Modigliani, The Melancholy Angel"; “Pont-Aven and Gauguin”; “Botticelli – from Lorenzo the Magnificent to Savonarola“; “Moi! Self-portraits of the 20th Century”; “Veronese the Profane”; “Matisse, A Second Life”; ”The Phillips Collection in Paris"; “Lyric Flight"; "Titian, In the Face of Power”, “René Lalique, Jewels of Exception" and, recently, “Arcimboldo“.

In 2001, the production and organization of exhibitions at the Musée du Luxembourg were delegated to Mr. Sylvestre Verger, the Museum's general administrator.
Since then, sVo Musée du Luxembourg has striven to present quality exhibitions at the Museum; the more than three million visitors are a clear measure of their success.

With the authorization accorded to Mr. Verger for his company sVo Musée du Luxembourg due to expire on 31 July 2005, the Senate launched a consulting procedure in the autumn of 2004. It received management proposals covering the period 2005-2008 from sVo Musée du Luxembourg, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, and Lord, a Canadian firm.

At the conclusion of these proceedings, the Senate accepted the proposal submitted by sVo Musée du Luxembourg, which, in its opinion, offered the strongest guarantee of further enhancing the museum's reputation and maintaining a level of excellence in the choice of exhibitions.

A prestigious history

1615:
The Palais du Luxembourg is built for Marie de Médicis by the architect Salomon de Brosse. His design includes two galleries to hold a cycle of 24 paintings by Rubens glorifying the queen.

1750:
Opening of France's first public museum of painting in the East Wing. The hundred paintings on view were taken from the King's Chambers; it is the public's first opportunity to discover Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Veronese, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Poussin, and Raphael.

1815:
The allies demand the return of patrimonial treasures seized by the Directoire. The Louvre is emptied and the paintings in the Luxembourg are brought in to partially fill the space.

1818:
The galleries of the palace become a museum of living artists, with works by David, Gros, Girodet, Ingres, and Delacroix, among others, on view.

1884 – 1886:
The building that houses the museum today is constructed by the Senate. It is bequeathed a collection by Caillebotte. Picasso, Pissaro, Bonnard, Degas, Gauguin, and Renoir are exhibited until 1937, when the collections are transferred to the new modern art museum.

1937 – 2000:
Under the management of the Culture Ministry, the Museum becomes a gallery for exhibitions devoted to presenting the artistic heritage of the regions of France

Lodging

See the listing in the Hotels in Saint-Germain area (6th distritc in Paris)