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The Musée d’Orsay was originally designed as a train station in 1900. By the 1950’s it became apparent that the platforms were too short for modern trains and the building became home to a theatre. In the 1970's it was remodelled and converted into a museum dedicated to displaying art from the period 1848 to 1915.

The Orsay museum's main exhibitions are presented chronologically, with the work of the Impressionists taking centre stage but also including Academism, Realism, Symbolism and Art nouveau. In this way the fascinating relationship between those that influenced them and were in turn influenced by them can clearly be seen.

There are many masterpieces at the Musée d’Orsay including work by Delacroix, Manet, Guaguin, Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, van Gogh and many more great artists.

Among the spectacular works on display at the Orsay museum is Auguste Clésinger’s Woman Bitten by a Snake which scandalised all of Paris in 1847 by supposedly depicting a woman not bitten by a snake but in the throes of passion and, said prominent critics of the time, modelled from real life on 19th Century socialite Apollonie Sabatier.

Despite the great wealth of French art, the Musée d’Orsay also features works from international origins thanks to its foreign art acquisition and exhibition policy. Seasons of temporary exhibitions, concerts, festivals and cinema events also take place at the Orsay museum.

As with so many Parisian museums the building itself is a wonder. In this case much of the beauty of the Musée d'Orsay stems from its earlier incarnation as a railway station.

The station clock remains, as does the spectacular iron-framed glass roof and many other reminders of the practical beauty of infrastructure engineering. During the conversion from station to museum the painter of Orsay said that the station had resembled a palace of fine art even when it was first built.

Musée d'Orsay is one of the finest museums in Paris, both for the fantastic building itself and the treasures inside and is truly a wonder which no Paris visitor should miss.