Built as an exhibition palace for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, Charles Girault's Petit Palais is as much a draw as the art inside it. Its gilded entrance gate, mosaic floors, painted domes and spiral staircases lead to a semicircular garden courtyard framed by a colonnade, a quiet spot just off the Champs-Élysées and facing the Grand Palais.
The building houses the city's fine arts museum, signed as the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Its collection runs from ancient Greek vases and medieval objects through Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age works to Orthodox icons and decorative arts. Its strongest suit is nineteenth-century French painting, including Courbet's Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine and The Sleep, Monet's Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt and Cézanne's portrait of Ambroise Vollard, alongside Art Nouveau furniture and jewellery.
Drawing around a million visitors a year, it suits those who want major works and a striking interior on a more manageable scale than the city's largest museums.
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