The Louvre and the D’Orsay Museum are the two most famous museums in Paris, drawing record numbers of visitors in recent years. Here’s a list of a few off-the-beaten-path museums we recommend during the pandemic.
Musée Cognacq-Jay
8 Rue Elzevir, Paris 75003
Around the corner from the Musée Carnavalet is a small gem of a museum, Musée Cognacq-Jay. Ernest Cognacq was the owner of a chain of luxury department stores, Samaritaine. He and his wife, Mary-Louise Jay, were avid collectors of fine antiques, amassing an extensive collection between 1900 and 1927. When Cognacq died in 1929, he bequeathed his collection to Paris to be available for public viewing and historical purposes.
In 1990 the collection was moved to a former, large-scale townhouse constructed in 1575 for an aristocratic family. Today the museum has meticulously recreated many of the former rooms of the Cognacq-Jay family, filled with antiques, furniture, objects, lamps, chandeliers, carpets, tapestries, and artifacts, mostly from the 18th century.
Admission is free for the permanent collection.
Open 10 am – 6 pm Tuesday – Sunday.
Masks are mandatory for 11 years old +.
Musée de la Vie Romantique
16 Rue Chaptal, Paris 75009
Musée de la Vie Romantique is a delightful treasure that whisks you back to a home filled with the company of artists and writers of the late 1800s. Musée de la Vie Romantique, located below Montmartre, was the Dutch-born portrait painter Ary Scheffer. He and his daughter became noted for their Friday night salons held in their house, inviting artists, musicians, and writers from the neighborhood such as Chopin, George Sands, Liszt, Charles Dickens, Eugene Delacroix, and Franz Liszt.
Walking down a long, cobblestone path from the street, you enter into a courtyard containing three structures, two of them used as Scheffer’s ateliers, the other, his home. The ateliers host temporary exhibitions and selected works of Scheffer, and the house is decorated in period furniture and antiques, with showcases filled with George Sands jewelry collection and more of Scheffer’s paintings. There’s a lovely outdoor tea salon in the garden.
Admission is free for the permanent collection.
Open 10 am – 6 pm Tuesday – Sunday.
Masks are mandatory for 11 years old +.
Salon de Thé is open until 530 pm.
Musée Marmottan Monet
2 Rue Louis Boilly, Paris 75016
In an unassuming building across from a small park, in a quiet, upscale residential area of Paris, is a museum that has the world’s most extensive collection of Monet paintings. Musée Marmottan Monet was built as a home for businessman and art collector Paul Marmottan in the early 1900s. The museum was the beneficiary of Monet paintings in 1966, which were donated by Claude Monet’s son Michel and it now contains over 100 Monet paintings on permanent display.
Tickets can be bought online.
Open 10 am – 6 pm Tuesday – Sunday.
Masks are mandatory for 11 years old +.
by Richard Nahem