Description of the attraction
Small Palais, Petit Palais (like its "brother" Grand Palais) is located near the Champs Elysees on the site where the Palace of Industry, erected for the 1855 World Exhibition, was formerly located. Both "brothers" were built for the next World's Fair in 1900. After its completion, Petit Palais was given to the Museum of Modern Art.
On the part of the owner of the palace, the city of Paris, this was a far-sighted step. The Petit Palais building was the most modern of its era and was distinguished by its rare beauty. This reputation has pushed serious collectors to transfer paintings and sculptures here. The Dutuis brothers from Rouen handed over to the museum a collection of antiquities that they had collected all their lives - objects of art from ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Flemish painting.
In the halls of the museum you can see the works of artists of the XIX century: Courbet, Monet, Sisley, Gauguin, Maillol, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec. In the gallery of the palace there is a separate exhibition of the "Tak collection" - a collection of paintings and sculptures donated to Petit Palais by the American philanthropist Edward Tuck and his wife Julia in 1930. The art of the 20th century is widely represented. The funds contain a rich collection of works by the Fauves and Cubists.
Petit Palais is also interesting for its rich collection of icons. For a long time, icons were not considered art in the West, since they did not participate in the development of European painting. So, the icons taken out by the white emigration to Europe most often did not find buyers. It is for this reason that the patron of the arts Roger Cabal managed, with modest funds, to collect an outstanding private collection of icons, which he donated to the museum. The collection was seriously replenished during the war in Lebanon - from there they managed to take out and save the icons that had found refuge in Petit Palais.
In 2005, the palace was thoroughly restored. Before the renovation, it was covered with a not very transparent glass dome; the courtyard was closed to visitors. Now the mosaics of the dome, marble floors, and frescoes have been completely restored. The exhibition area has been expanded: five thousand square meters have been allocated for the museum's collections, and another two thousand for temporary exhibitions. The Petit Palais collection now contains 45,000 works of art.
The palace, the property of the municipality, was completely restored with funds received from the tax on residence in Paris. Now it is one of the rare free museums in the city.
