Genet Wagstaff

LE MUSÉE D’ORSAY

Location• Le Musée d’Orsay is located on

the left bank of the Seine River

in the 7th arrondissement.

• The 7th arrondissement of

Paris is mainly a tourism district

however, it is a more expensive

and prestigious district of Paris.

History• The original site for the museum started out as le rue de Lille, a garden for Henry IV’s wife.

• After her death the land was sold in sections and became plots that held mansions and other buildings that embodied the aristocratic social system.

• The plot that would come to hold le Musée d’Orsay became Paris’s Court of Accounts and State Council building but was burned to the ground in 1871 during the upheaval known as the Paris Commune.

Le Gare d’Orsay• Construction on the train station began in 1898 when Victor Laloux was selected to be the architect overseeing the project.

• Le Gare d’Orsay and the accompanying Hotel d’Orsay were inaugurated into the World Fair on July 14, 1900.

• However, as a train station le Gare d’Orsay quickly became outdated as trains became more modern and longer as well as electricity becoming more of a necessity than something to boast about having in a building.

Becoming Le Musée d’Orsay• Le Gare d’Orsay was listed as a Historical Monument on March 8, 1973 after a hotel chain sought to tear down the train station in order to expand.

• The official decision that said the station would be transformed into a museum of modern art was made on October 20, 1977

Le Musée d’Orsay

Monet

Manet

Pissarro

Cézanne

Van Gough

Thanks y’all!