Marseille Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des Beaux Arts) Tours and Activities

The Marseille Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des Beaux Arts) is one of the city’s main museums, and was opened in 1801 by the Consulate along with five other museums in the other large cities of France. Originally housed in the Couvent des Bernardines, it has been transferred to a wing of the lavish Palais Longchamp in 1869, a now historical monument built by architect Henry Espérandieu in 1862.

The Museum of Fine Arts’ collection includes over 8,000 paintings, sculptures, and drawings dating back from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Works are from diverse European schools, including the French (which are majorly represented), Italian, Spanish and Northern (Flanders and Holland). A large collection of sculptures by Pierre Paul Puget (1620–1694) and Auguste Rodin’s masterpiece “La Méditation”, a gift from the artist himself, are among the best examples of the French school on display.