Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen is one of the best provincial art museums in France, standing on the Esplanade Marcel-Duchamp, near the Square Verdrel and facing the Musée de la Céramique. It was founded in the years following the French Revolution, when artworks taken from churches and private collections were gathered together, and it opened to the public at the end of the eighteenth century. The present building was designed by the architect Louis Sauvageot and opened in 1888, and its large halls and top-lit galleries were renovated in the 1990s by the designer Andrée Putman, who gave them a lighter, more modern look.

The collection covers paintings from the fifteenth century to the present, along with sculpture, drawings and decorative objects. Among the foreign masters, the museum has a celebrated Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio, a powerful canvas from the Italian master's career, as well as works by Rubens, Velázquez, Delacroix and Ingres. The Spanish and Italian rooms give a good picture of the range of the European tradition. Théodore Géricault, who was born in Rouen, also features among the French artists represented here.

The museum's reputation, however, depends especially on its Impressionist collection, one of the most important in France outside Paris. It includes paintings by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Degas and other artists of the movement. Claude Monet is especially well represented through his paintings of Rouen Cathedral, in which he studied the changing light on the same facade at different hours of the day, and standing in the city that provided his subject gives the works a special resonance. Rouen's cathedral is only a short walk away, so you can compare the paintings with the building itself.

The layout is large, and visitors sometimes find it hard to find their way around, so it is useful to decide on your priorities before you start. Allow two hours for the highlights, or a half day if you want to see the whole collection. The museum is part of a network of municipal museums in Rouen, which also includes the Musée de la Céramique and the Musée Maritime, Fluvial et Portuaire, and these are good additions for a rainy day.

It suits art lovers, those interested in Impressionism and travellers who plan to visit Rouen Cathedral and the old town. The Place du Vieux-Marché, the Rue du Gros-Horloge and the Palais de Justice are all within a short walk, and the Église Saint-Ouen is a short walk away.