Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours
Encyclopedia
The Musée des beaux-arts de Tours (English: Museum of Fine Arts of Tours) is located in the bishop's former palace, near the cathedral St. Gatien, where it has been since 1910. It displays rich and varied collections, including that of painting which is one of the first in France both in quality and the diversity of the works presented.

Description

In the courtyard, there are a magnificent cedar of Lebanon and stuffed elephant in a building in front of the museum. This elephant was killed for madness during a circus parade "Barnum & Bailey" in the streets of Tours on 10 June 1902.

The museum gets over 12,000 works but only 1,000 are shows to the public. On the ground floor, the museum has a room especially dedicated to Tours art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The monument has been classified as monument historique
Monument historique
A monument historique is a National Heritage Site of France. It also refers to a state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building or a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, or gardens, bridges, and other structures, because of their...

 on 27 June 1983.

Collections

The museum has a large and fairly homogeneous collection of paintings, which includes several masterpieces such as two paintings by Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

, from the predella of the San Zeno Altarpiece
San Zeno Altarpiece (Mantegna)
The San Zeno Altarpiece is a triptych by the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna, from c. 1457-1460. It is located in the Basilica di San Zeno, the main church of Verona. The three predellas were stripped by the French in 1797, and are now replaced by copies...

:
  • Collection of Italian Primitives shows works by Mantegna, Antonio Vivarini
    Antonio Vivarini
    Antonio Vivarini was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance-late Gothic period, who worked mostly in the Republic of Venice...

    , Giovanni di Paolo
    Giovanni di Paolo
    Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia was an Italian painter, working primarily in Siena. He may have apprenticed with Taddeo di Bartolo, becoming a prolific painter and illustrator of manuscripts, including Dante's texts....

    , Lippo d'Andrea and Lorenzo Veneziano
    Lorenzo Veneziano
    Lorenzo Veneziano was an Italian painter. His earliest altar-piece was painted for the high altar of the church of Sant' Antonio di Castello, and is now in the Accademia at Venice...

    . Italian painting of the following centuries is represented by works of Giovanni Battista Moroni
    Giovanni Battista Moroni
    Giovanni Battista Moroni was a North Italian painter of the Late Renaissance period. He is also called Giambattista Moroni...

    , Mattia Preti
    Mattia Preti
    Mattia Preti was an Italian Baroque artist who worked in Italy and Malta.- Biography :Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was sometimes called Il Cavalier Calabrese...

    , Sebastiano Conca
    Sebastiano Conca
    Sebastiano Conca was an Italian painter.He was born at Gaeta, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, and apprenticed in Naples under Francesco Solimena. In 1706, along with his brother Giovanni, who acted as his assistant, he settled at Rome, where for several years he worked in chalk only, to...

    , Francesco Cairo
    Francesco Cairo
    Francesco Cairo was an Italian painter active in Baroque Lombardy and Piedmont.He was born and died in Milan. It is not known where he obtained his early training though he is strongly influenced by the circle of il Morazzone, in works such as the Saint Teresa altarpiece in the Certosa di Pavia.In...

     and Giuseppe Bazzani
    Giuseppe Bazzani
    Giuseppe Bazzani was an Italian painter of the Rococo.Born in Mantua to a goldsmith, Giovanni Bazzani, early on he apprenticed with the Parmesan painter Giovanni Canti . A fellow pupil was Francesco Maria Raineri. He spent most of his life in Mantua...

    .
  • The French painting until the nineteenth is displayed by artists such as Claude Vignon
    Claude Vignon
    Claude Vignon was a leading French painter and engraver working in the Baroque manner.He was born at Tours and received early training in Paris...

    , Philippe de Champaigne
    Philippe de Champaigne
    Philippe de Champaigne was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.-Early life:Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières...

    , Jacques Blanchard
    Jacques Blanchard
    Jacques Blanchard , also known as Jacques Blanchart, was a French baroque painter who was born in Paris. He was raised and taught by his uncle, the painter Nicolas Bollery...

    , Noël Coypel
    Noël Coypel
    Noël Coypel , French painter, also called, from the fact that he was much influenced by Poussin, Coypel le Poussin, was the son of an unsuccessful artist....

    , Eustache Le Sueur
    Eustache Le Sueur
    Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur , one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting, was born in Paris, where he passed his whole life....

    , Jean Jouvenet
    Jean Jouvenet
    Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet was a French painter, especially of religious subjects.He was born into an artistic family in Rouen...

    , Charles de La Fosse
    Charles de La Fosse
    Charles de La Fosse , French painter, was born in Paris.He was one of the most noted and least servile pupils of Le Brun, under whose direction he shared in the chief of the great decorative works undertaken in the reign of Louis XIV. Leaving France in 1662, he spent two years in Rome and three in...

    , Hyacinthe Rigaud
    Hyacinthe Rigaud
    Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris.He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts and considered one of the most notable French portraitists of the classical period...

    , Nicolas de Largillière
    Nicolas de Largillière
    Nicolas de Largillière was a painter born in Paris, France.-Early life:Largillière's father, a merchant, took him to Antwerp at the age of three. As a boy, he spent nearly two years in London. Sometime after his return to Antwerp, a failed attempt at business led him to the studio of Goubeau...

    , Pierre Subleyras
    Pierre Subleyras
    Pierre Subleyras was a French painter, active during the late-Baroque and early-Neoclassic period, mainly in Italy....

    , François Lemoyne
    François Lemoyne
    François Lemoyne or François Le Moine was a French rococo painter.He was born in Paris. In 1701, when he was 13 years old, he entered the Académie de peinture et de sculpture. He studied under Louis Galloche and stayed until 1713. In 1711, Lemoyne won the Prix de Rome...

    , Jean-Marc Nattier
    Jean-Marc Nattier
    Jean-Marc Nattier , French painter, was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier , a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois , a miniaturist...

    , François Boucher
    François Boucher
    François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...

    , Carle Van Loo, Nicolas Lancret
    Nicolas Lancret
    Nicolas Lancret , French painter, was born in Paris, and became a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society under the regent Orleans....

    , Jean-Baptiste Perronneau
    Jean-Baptiste Perronneau
    Jean-Baptiste Perronneau was a French painter who specialized in portraits executed in pastels....

    , Joseph Vernet, Hubert Robert
    Hubert Robert
    Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...

    , Ingres
    Ingres
    Ingres Database is a commercially supported, open-source SQL relational database management system intended to support large commercial and government applications...

    , Théodore Chassériau
    Théodore Chassériau
    Théodore Chassériau was a French romantic painter noted for his portraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Algeria.-Life and work:...

    , Eugène Delacroix
    Eugène Delacroix
    Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

    , Edgar Degas
    Edgar Degas
    Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...

     and Claude Monet
    Claude Monet
    Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...

    .
  • The collection of Flemish and Dutch painting presents works by artists such as Rubens
    Rubens
    Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens , the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens (composer) Rubens is...

    , Rembrandt, Frans II Francken, Gerard ter Borch
    Gerard ter Borch
    Gerard ter Borch was a Dutch genre painter, who lived in the Dutch Golden Age.-Biography:Gerard ter Borch was born in December 1617 in Zwolle in the province of Overijssel in the Dutch Republic....

    , Bartholomeus van der Helst
    Bartholomeus van der Helst
    Bartholomeus van der Helst was a Dutch portrait painter.-Biography:Born in Haarlem, the son of a Haarlem innkeeper, Van der Helst moved to Amsterdam some time before 1636, for he was married there in that year...

    , David Teniers the Younger
    David Teniers the Younger
    David Teniers the Younger was a Flemish artist born in Antwerp, the son of David Teniers the Elder. His son David Teniers III and his grandson David Teniers IV were also painters...

    .
  • Modern painting is represented with artworks by Maurice Denis
    Maurice Denis
    Maurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and education:...

     or Maria Elena Vieira da Silva.
  • There are sculptures by Jean-Antoine Houdon
    Jean-Antoine Houdon
    Jean-Antoine Houdon was a French neoclassical sculptor. Houdon is famous for his portrait busts and statues of philosophers, inventors and political figures of the Enlightenment...

    , Auguste Rodin
    Auguste Rodin
    François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...

    , Antoine Bourdelle
    Antoine Bourdelle
    Antoine Bourdelle , originally Émile Antoine Bourdelle, was an influential and prolific French sculptor, painter, and teacher.-Career:...

    , Alberto Giacometti
    Alberto Giacometti
    Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...

    and Olivier Debré.
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