The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.
The museum building was originally a railway station, Gare d'Orsay, located next to the Seine river. Built on the site of the old Palais d'Orsay, its central location was convenient for commuting travelers.
The Gare d'Orsay design was considered to be an "anachronism." Since trains were such a modern innovation for the time architects and designers alike expected a building that would embody the modern traits of this new mode of transportation.
- Wikipedia
