The Musée d'Orsay before opening

Why it is on the list

The Orsay holds the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings in the world: Morisot, Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and van Gogh.¹ It hangs in the former Gare d'Orsay, a railway station finished for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, under the station's barrel vault and its great clock.¹ Before the public is let in, your group sees the galleries with a lecturer.² Breakfast comes first, in the small salon of the restaurant: the dining room of the old station hotel, with ceilings by Gabriel Ferrier and Benjamin Constant and a view over the Seine, a listed historic monument.²

It is the wrong choice for Monet's Water Lilies alone: those hang at the Musée de l'Orangerie, which also opens its collections to private groups.³ It is also the wrong choice for a large party or a dinner: for that the Orsay opens in the evening, from 18.30 to 21.00 for a guided visit with a drink, or from 19.30 to midnight with every gallery open, cocktails for up to 1,200 and dinner for up to 300 in the restaurant.²

How to get it

Write to the museum's events office at location@musee-orsay.fr or call +33 1 40 49 47 81 with your date and numbers.⁴ Ask for the breakfast and private visit (petit-déjeuner et visite privilège); it runs Tuesday to Friday from 8.30 to 10.30 am, and you choose the permanent collections or the current exhibition.² The museum opens to the public at 9.30 am, so plan breakfast early and the galleries first.⁵ The museum is accessible to wheelchair users and lends wheelchairs; taxis set down on rue de Solférino and on the quai Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.²

For the evening formulas, the museum stays open late on Thursdays, so they are not offered that day.⁴ The brochure gives every other evening; the events page gives Monday to Friday only, so ask about a weekend date before you plan on one.²⁴ Set-up starts at 18.00, at 17.00 on Mondays.²

Discretion

The group has the galleries with its lecturer before the public is let in at 9.30 am.²⁵ For a party that wants the building to itself for longer, the evening private hire opens every collection to your guests alone from 19.30 to midnight.²