Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau stands near the centre of the capital of Béarn, in a building of the 1930s on Rue Mathieu Lalanne, and it holds the main art collection of the western Pyrenees. The museum was founded in the nineteenth century and houses European paintings from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Its display, in the Art Deco building with its clean lines and large skylit galleries, is arranged by themes and subjects, such as portraits, landscapes and scenes of everyday life, rather than a strict sequence of dates, which lets works from different periods and countries be compared.

The collection reflects Pau's history as a fashionable winter resort in the nineteenth century, when a large British community settled here and the city attracted artists and travellers. The strongest areas are French painting of the nineteenth century, along with Spanish, Italian, Flemish and Dutch works from earlier centuries. Peter Paul Rubens is represented, as are other old masters, and there are works by Impressionist-era artists. The best-known piece is Edgar Degas's painting of the cotton office in New Orleans, made in 1873 during a visit to his relatives in Louisiana. It shows his uncle's firm at work, with men examining samples, reading papers and talking, and it was bought by the museum in 1878, making it one of the first of Degas's works to enter a public collection in France. It is also one of the most interesting group portraits of the period.

Other rooms contain paintings by regional artists, portraits of local people, and sculpture. The museum also arranges temporary exhibitions and hosts talks and workshops. A renovation integrated a library and an art school in the building, which makes it more of a working cultural centre than a conventional museum. The atmosphere is quiet and unhurried, and the museum is rarely crowded.

A visit takes one to two hours. Check the opening times before you go, as the museum keeps afternoon hours and is closed on certain days, and contact the museum directly for details on group visits or accessibility.

The museum sits within a short walk of the Boulevard des Pyrénées, the long terrace that looks over the mountains, and of the Château de Pau, the castle where Henri IV was born, now a national museum. The Parc Beaumont, the Place du Palais and the Théâtre des Arts all lie close by, as does the Musée du Vieux Pau. It suits art lovers, those interested in the nineteenth-century story of Pau, and anyone looking for a rainy-day visit in the city.