Unofficial visitor guide · Paris
Official audio guide · English Yes · 10 languages · €6
The Musée d'Orsay's audio guide covers more than 300 works in ten languages. For the labels around them, or in a language the guide doesn't offer, here is what helps.
Independent guide by the makers of Tales of Museums. Not affiliated with the Musée d'Orsay.
Checked on 14 October 2026 from the sources linked above. Museums change their guides and rules; confirm on the official Musée d'Orsay website before you go.
Checked on 14 October 2026 from the sources linked above. Museums change their guides and rules; confirm on the official Musée d'Orsay website before you go.
Swipe for the works and stories worth knowing before you go.
While flattening the canvas in 2025, restorers found a strip of Courbet's own paint, a few centimetres wide, folded under the bottom edge. It is on show again, so the grave looks deeper and the gravedigger's tool handle is back. Faces Courbet painted out have resurfaced with age, and were left visible.
musee-orsay.fr: Burial at Ornans restoration completed · musee-orsay.fr: A Burial at Ornans
Monet left this huge canvas with a carpenter in Argenteuil as security for his rent. When he got it back in 1884, damp had ruined parts of it, so he cut it up. This is the left-hand piece, and on its own it stands more than four metres tall.
Lautrec painted these two giant panels for La Goulue, a fading Moulin Rouge star, to stand at the entrance to her fairground booth, out in all weathers. In the Moorish Dance, find Oscar Wilde seen from behind, the critic Félix Fénéon at bottom right, and Lautrec himself. The state bought them in 1929 cut into eight pieces.
Millet said it came from his grandmother, who stopped the family's field work to pray whenever the church bell rang. The Louvre's bid in 1889 stirred patriotic fever, but an American buyer won; the collector Alfred Chauchard brought it back and left it to the state. In 1932 a man slashed it.
Before it held art, the station sent parcels to prisoners of war, received returning prisoners at the Liberation, appeared in Orson Welles's film of Kafka's The Trial and housed Paris auctioneers. De Gaulle announced his return to power in its hotel ballroom, and in the 1970s it was nearly demolished for a modern hotel.
A flood damaged Van Gogh's first Bedroom while he was in hospital in Arles, so a year later he painted two copies. This smaller one was for his mother and sister in Holland. It later belonged to the Japanese collector Kojiro Matsukata and came to France in 1959 under the peace treaty with Japan.
When Degas died in 1917, 150 wax and clay sculptures turned up in his studio; this dancer was the only one he had shown in public. The wax original had real hair, a tutu and real ballet slippers, and critics likened the girl to a monkey. According to the museum, the glass case is the one element Degas himself wanted.
Carpeaux turned down the state's 15,000-franc offer for a marble Ugolino as too low, and was paid 30,000 for a bronze instead. Each child shows a different stage of starving to death. The 740 kg group then stood outdoors in the Tuileries gardens from 1863 to 1904, as a partner to the Laocoön.
Manet drew on Titian's Venus of Urbino, then turned the goddess into a Paris prostitute who meets your eye with a calculating look, and the 1865 Salon was scandalised. In 1890 Claude Monet raised a public subscription to give it to the state, and it reached the Louvre in 1907.
Turned down by the 1863 Salon jury, it was shown at the Salon des Refusés as Le Bain and became the star turn, greeted with laughter and outrage. Manet jokingly called it la partie carrée, a foursome. Under the terms of its 1906 gift by the collector Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, it may not be lent.
Tales of Museums reads the label in front of you aloud in your language. The museum's free Wi-Fi covers only some areas, so mobile data helps.
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The rented device speaks French, German, English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian, with more than 300 commentaries on the permanent collections, for €6 (€4 reduced). musee-orsay.fr: audio guides
Since February 2024, in rooms 36 and 37 on level 5, at the end of the Impressionist gallery. Room assignments can change. musee-orsay.fr
The building is the former Gare d'Orsay, opened on 14 July 1900 for the World Fair. Rail travel soon outgrew it and it ended up serving only suburban trains; at the end of the 1970s the government decided to turn it into a museum of art from the second half of the 19th century, which opened in December 1986. epmo-musees.fr: The Musée d'Orsay and its collections
Yes. The museum says it stays open throughout the work, from March 2026 to summer 2028, though entrances may change. musee-orsay.fr
Yes: entry is free for everyone on the first Sunday of every month, with a reserved time slot, and on any day for under-18s, 18-25-year-olds from the EU or EEA, and disabled visitors with one companion. musee-orsay.fr: rates
Buy a timed ticket online and use Entrance 1 (Quay), reserved for timed tickets; the museum warns against street sellers and 'skip-the-line' resellers. It is closed on Mondays and open until 9:45 pm on Thursdays, with a cheaper rate for visits starting after 6 pm (last entry 9 pm). musee-orsay.fr: visit · musee-orsay.fr: rates
Take RER C to Musée d'Orsay station, or Metro line 12 to Solférino. Buses 63, 68, 69, 73, 83, 84, 87 and 94 also stop nearby. musee-orsay.fr: visit
Yes: all galleries, cafés, the restaurant and the shops can be reached by lift or ramp. Wheelchairs and folding chairs are lent free at the cloakroom in exchange for ID, and disabled visitors and one companion get free, priority entry without booking. musee-orsay.fr: accessibility services
Yes. In every school holiday the Musée d'Orsay's ballroom becomes a free space for relaxing and discovering art, open to all, and the museum's guided tours and workshops for children and families are in French only. You can borrow a stroller in exchange for ID, but prams, large strollers and baby carriers with metal frames are not allowed inside; lifts and ramps reach the whole museum, and there is a baby area on level -1. musee-orsay.fr: Families · musee-orsay.fr: Services at the Musée d'Orsay · Official ticket office: children and family activities
The Musée d'Orsay has three places to eat, all inside the museum and open to anyone with a museum ticket: Café Campana on the 5th floor at the exit of the Impressionist gallery, the self-service Café de la Gare beneath the nave, and the Restaurant, a listed Belle Époque dining room that serves lunch and afternoon tea and does not take reservations. In summer a rooftop terrace by the Impressionist gallery serves drinks and small plates when the weather allows. musee-orsay.fr: Restaurants and cafés · musee-orsay.fr: Visit (catering)
No, the Musée d'Orsay is closed on Mondays. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9.30am to 6pm, with a late opening on Thursdays until 9.45pm. Last admission is at 5pm (9pm on Thursdays). Closed every Monday, on 1 May and on 25 December. musee-orsay.fr: visit (opening times)
The Musée d'Orsay has a free self-service cloakroom for coats and small luggage, and large backpacks, motorcycle helmets, large umbrellas and cabin-size suitcases of up to 56 × 45 × 25 cm must be left there, as must camera tripods, supports and lighting equipment. There are security checks at the entrances, and the museum asks you to keep your other belongings with you, because an unattended object can lead to an evacuation. musee-orsay.fr: services (cloakroom) · musee-orsay.fr: visiting conditions
Tales of Museums is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the Musée d'Orsay. Translations, narration and the extra facts use AI and can contain mistakes, so for anything important, check the museum's official information and the linked sources. Please follow the museum's photography rules.