France Guide
The Loire
Musée des Beaux-Arts
Opening time: Tues– Sat 10am–12.15pm & 1.30–5.45pm, Sun 2–6.30pm
Price: €3
The interesting Musée des Beaux-Arts opposite the Hôtel Groslot, is probably the cultural high point of the city. The highlights of the main French collection on the first floor include Claude Deruet's Four Elements, the Le Nain brothers' dream-like and compelling Bacchus Discovering Ariane on Naxos, and the exquisite collection of eighteenth-century pastel portraits in room eight. The suite of rooms on the mezzanine level leads from nineteenth-century Neoclassicism through Romanticism and on to a large chamber devoted to the early Realists, dominated by Antigna's taut, melodramatic The Fire. Foreign art, mainly Flemish and Italian sixteenth- and seventeenth-century works, is on the second floor – look out for Correggio's renowned Holy Family (1522) and Velázquez's St Thomas. Twentieth-century art lurks in the basement, where the big names include Picasso and Gauguin; a small inner chamber has a number of African-influenced sculptures by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891–1915), who was born just outside Orléans at St-Jean-de-Braye. English explanation sheets are supplied in each room.