Tourist attractions in Paris : Petit Palais

The Petit Palais (small palace) is an art museum near the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Like its neighbor, the Grand Palais, it was also built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition. It became a museum in 1902 and it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts, which displays paintings by well-known painters from the 17th century and a remarkable collection of sculptures. There is also a relatively small but important collection of ancient Greek and Roman art.

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The Beaux-Arts style Petit Palais was designed by Charles Girault based on a trapezium shape and is made up of four wings around a semi-circular garden bordered by a richly decorated peristyle.The tympanum at the entrance is the work of sculptor Jean Antoine Injalbert, depicting the city of Paris surrounded by muses. 

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The Petit Palais houses a significant collection of decorative murals and sculptures created between 1903 and 1925. Between 1903 and 1910, Albert Besnard painted four decorative murals in the Symbolist style for the museum’s entrance lobby: Matter, Thought, Formal Beauty and Mysticism. Cormon and Roll were both given the task of decorating galleries which are 15 meters long. From 1906 to 1911, Cormon retold the story of Paris through history, from the battle of Lutetia up to the French Revolution. Roll, by contrast, was given the job of illustrating modern Paris. Directly above the main galleries, there are sixteen plaster busts set into the wall representing famous artists.

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Photo by Jason Whittaker

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In the North pavilion, Ferdinand Humbert painted two ceilings between 1909 and 1924 celebrating The Intellectual Triumph of Paris. Humbert introduced a  contemporary character into his composition in the form of an ordinary pedestrian in a hat and overcoat going down some steps. In the South pavilion, Georges Picard depicted The Triumph of Woman (1906-1920).
 

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To decorate the vaulted ceiling of the garden portico, Paul Baudoüin, reinvented the art of fresco painting which had been neglected since the Renaissance. He painted a huge vista of vines interspersed with medallions featuring The Months of the Year and The Hours of the Day and Night. The three large sections of the vaulted ceiling are punctuated by the feminine allegories of the Seasons.

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The last phase of work took place just after World War One. Work on the cupola above the staircase providing access at the South East of the museum was entrusted to Maurice Denis, who created a composition retracing the history of French art, illustrated by portraits of artists along with their most famous works. 

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The Petit Palais has a large area paved with mosaics covering the floors of the galleries, wings and first floor rotunda. The garden peristyle and the edges of the three ponds have also been decorated with little blocks of marble. This luxurious floor surface was created by Facchina (1826-1923), the famous Italian mosaic artist.


Text Source: petitpalais.paris.fr