The Musèe d’Orsay is a national museum which opened to the public in December 1986 in order to show, in all its diversity, the artistic creation of the western world from 1848 to 1914.
The museum’s nationally-owned collections originate from three main institutions: the Musèe du Louvre, for works by artists born after 1820 or who emerged into the art world with the Second Republic (1848-1852); the Musèe du Jeu de Paume, which had been dedicated since 1947 to Impressionism; and finally the Musèe National d’Art Moderne, which, when it was installed in the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1976, had only conserved works by artists born after 1870.
