Musée Cantini

The Musée Cantini is a museum of modern art in the centre of Marseille, housed in a handsome mansion a short walk from the Vieux-Port, on the Rue Grignan. The building is the Hôtel de Montgrand, built in 1694 for a rich merchant family in the classical style, with a courtyard, a monumental staircase and a garden, and it passed through several hands before being bought in the early twentieth century by Jules Cantini, a Marseille sculptor and marble entrepreneur who gave it to the city on his death in 1916. It opened as a museum in 1936 and has since become one of the city's main art museums, with a collection focused on the twentieth century.

The collections cover roughly the period from 1900 to the 1960s, and they reflect the great movements of modern art. Fauvism, with its explosive colour, is represented by works from the circle of painters who worked on the Mediterranean coast in the early years of the century, among them artists who found the light and landscapes of Provence an inspiration. Cubism, abstraction and Surrealism follow, with paintings and sculptures that show how artists broke with traditional ways of seeing, and the museum has strengths in Surrealist art, which flourished in Marseille during the Second World War, when many artists and writers took refuge in the city. After 1945, the collection moves on to new directions, including abstract and figurative painting of the postwar years and sculpture.

The museum is small enough to be seen in about an hour, and its scale allows a close look at individual works without the crowds of the larger museums. Temporary exhibitions are held regularly and bring in works from other collections, and the museum's setting, with its elegant rooms and courtyard, is a pleasant contrast to the modern art on the walls. The visit forms a quiet complement to the city's other museums.

Marseille has a particularly rich range of museums, many of them close to one another. The MuCEM, the museum of the civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean, stands at the entrance to the harbour in a striking building of concrete lace, and the Musée d'Histoire de Marseille tells the story of the city. The Vieille Charité, a seventeenth-century almshouse with a beautiful chapel, houses the museums of Mediterranean archaeology and African, Oceanic and Amerindian arts. The Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, the Cathédrale La Major, the Panier district and the Cours Julien with the Église Notre-Dame du Mont offer further sights, and the Calanques National Park and the Château d'If are within easy reach by boat or bus.

The museum suits lovers of modern art and anyone looking for a cultural stop in the city centre, and it is easy to combine with a walk along the Rue Grignan and the Rue Paradis, the elegant shopping streets nearby. Opening days and times vary, and the museum may close on Mondays, so check before going.