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The great vaulted nave of the former railway station inside the Musée d'Orsay

No. 12 Top 100 Most Visited Art Museums 2025 · 3,785,134 visitors in 2025

Musée d’Orsay

Paris, France · City guide: Paris

Impressionist masterpieces in a grand Beaux-Arts railway station on the Seine.

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Photo: Benh, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Overview

The Musée d'Orsay is No. 12 in The Art Newspaper's survey of the world's most visited art museums, with 3,785,134 visitors in 2025, up 1% on 2024. It is also No. 23 in Tripadvisor's Travelers' Choice Best of the Best 2026 ranking of the top attractions in the world. The museum opened in 1986 in the Gare d'Orsay, a railway station built by Victor Laloux for the Exposition Universelle of 1900.

It covers Western art from 1848 to 1914 and holds the world's largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, along with sculpture, decorative arts and photography.

The giant clock window of the Musée d'Orsay looking out over the Seine
The giant clock window of the Musée d'Orsay looking out over the Seine. Photo: Wenchao Wang, CC BY 3.0, source

Best time to visit

The museum is closed on Mondays and stays open late on Thursday evenings. Book a timed ticket and arrive at opening time, or come on a Thursday evening.

Highlights & collections

  • 1

    The Impressionist galleries

    On the top floor: Monet, Renoir's Bal du moulin de la Galette, Degas, Pissarro and Sisley.

  • 2

    Manet

    Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia, two paintings that scandalised Paris.

  • 3

    Van Gogh and Gauguin

    Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhône, a version of The Bedroom and his 1889 self-portrait, alongside Gauguin's Tahitian paintings.

  • 4

    The great clocks

    Look out through the giant glass clock faces of the former station across the Seine towards the Louvre.

  • 5

    The nave

    The vast former station hall under its glass vault is lined with 19th-century sculpture.

Getting there

The museum is on the Left Bank, opposite the Tuileries Garden. RER C stops at Musée d'Orsay station, and Solférino (Métro line 12) is a short walk away. The Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor footbridge leads across the Seine to the Tuileries and the Louvre.

Visiting tips

Tickets & hours
Book a timed ticket online. A combined ticket with the Musée de l'Orangerie is available. Check the official website for prices and hours.
Time needed
Two to three hours.
Tips
Head to the top-floor Impressionist galleries first, before they fill up. Bags go through security.
Safety
Watch for pickpockets in the queues and on public transport. The EU-wide emergency number is 112.
Visa & entry
France is in the Schengen Area. Many visitors, including citizens of the US, Canada, the UK and Australia, can stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa. The EU's Entry/Exit System (EES) now records non-EU travellers' entries and exits at the border, and the ETIAS travel authorisation is due to follow. Check the official EU site travel-europe.europa.eu and your own government's travel advice before you go.

Official information: Musée d'Orsay (official website). Check opening hours, prices and entry rules there before you go.

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