After The Underworld of the Baroque, Rome of Vice and Misery, in 2015, and Luca Giordano (1634-1705), the Triumph of Neapolitan Painting, in 2019-2020, the Petit Palais presents the first French retrospective dedicated to Jusepe de Ribera, a great 17th-century painter of Spanish origin who made his entire career in Italy.

The exhibition retraces his entire work thanks to the latest scientific discoveries that have expanded the corpus of his early years with a set of paintings previously attributed to the ‘Master of the Judgment of Solomon’. The exhibition covers the two main periods of his career, his stay in Rome and then in Naples, and aims to demonstrate the major and pioneering role of the artist in the interpretation of Caravaggio.

This retrospective features around a hundred paintings, drawings, and engravings borrowed from numerous international museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Prado (Madrid), the Borghese Gallery (Rome), the Museo di Capodimonte (Naples), the Palazzo Pitti (Florence), the British Museum (London), as well as French ones like the Louvre, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, and many others.

Jusepe de Ribera, Saint Jerome and the Angel of the last Judgment, 1626. Oil on canvas, 262×164 cm. Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples. © Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte.

We are all familiar with pearls. Sought-after since ancient times, they still inspire the great modern jewelers. But how many people know that they were at the heart of an intense trade between the Gulf and France from the late 19th to the mid-20th century? How many remember that they were at the center of the luxury industry and Parisian culture for decades?

Organized by L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, the exhibition “Paris, City of Pearls”, from November 21st, 2024 until June 1st, 2025, recounts the forgotten history of this amazing artistic, commercial and human adventure.

Rich in the history of the Invalides site, the Army Museum brings together 350 years of history and memories in a new tour. This innovative journey marks a major milestone for visitors, who discover the multiple facets of the Hôtel national des Invalides through a showcase of the museum’s treasures.

This tour, opened to the public in July 2024, consists of three spaces that make up the first stages of the major MINERVE extension and transformation project. The Army Museum asserts its uniqueness by telling the story of the place that forms the setting for its collections.

By fully playing its museum role towards the Invalides site, by recounting its history through the centuries and highlighting the uniqueness of a multifaceted living space, the Army Museum further strengthens the close bond that unites it with this exceptional heritage. This approach makes the Army Museum a true “site museum,” unique in its kind.

The proposed visit allows visitors to retrace the history of the Invalides, a major witness to French history, a regal site since its foundation in 1674, first a hospital under the Ancien Régime, then a military pantheon under the Empire, and finally a heritage site under the Republic.

In the former Vauban refectory, three centuries of history are evoked through singular works. In an innovative and creative scenography, visitors discover 26 works, including the restored relief plan of the Invalides site, a unique model representing the building at the time of Louis XIV, as well as emblematic works and objects linked to the Dome of the Invalides, a room with preserved wall paintings glorifying the Sun King’s conquests, and the reliquary showcase of Napoleon I’s mementos.

A central path allows for a chronological stroll while maintaining the perception of the refectory’s volumes. Visitors are invited to discover in this space the daily life of a soldier at the Invalides, both through period furniture and objects showing the importance of the regal dimension.

Photo credit: ©Paris, Army Museum/Anne-Sylvaine Marre-Noël

Pass valid for one visit for one person, until 2 February 2025.

Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) was an admirer of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), twenty years his elder.
For fifteen years, Bourdelle worked for him as a practitioner – meaning a craftsman tasked with carving marble blocks. The Master saw in this rather wilful heir a “scout for the future.”
From 1893 on, both men regularly met up, exchanging letters and artworks, while sharing a mutual passion for collecting. In 1911, their personal relationship started unravelling.

Running parallel, often overlapping, their trajectories play out in the form of visual conversations. Confronting these two major sculptors from the late 19th and early 20th centuries points to moments of solidarity and reciprocity, as well as of divergence and antagonism, between two worlds heralding the main issues of modern sculpture.

Private tour of the “Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & …” exhibition 

The exhibition “Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & …” focuses around Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) – one of the leading figures of the movement — through a selection of 150 paintings and works in various materials.

The exhibition also features 70 works by 35 artists of different generations and nationalities who share a common sensibility for “Pop” – from its Dadaist roots to its contemporary manifestations, and from the 1920s to the present day. 

Tom Wesselmann, Mouth #14 (Marilyn), 1967 – Mugrabi Collection © ADAGP, Paris, 2024 Photo : © Jeffrey Sturges

Since 2021, the Maison de Victor Hugo has continued its series of monographic exhibitions dedicated to painters connected to Victor Hugo. After François-Auguste Biard, Louis Boulanger, and Georges Hugo, François Chifflart (1825-1901) will be highlighted this fall through 170 pieces gathered for the occasion.

The museum pays tribute to this master of black and white, complementing its significant collection with loans from many institutions, particularly from the Musée de l’Hôtel Sandelin in Saint-Omer and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, thus offering a retrospective of an artist who deserved to be rediscovered.

His independent and rebellious spirit against academicism and the ruling power curtailed the promising career that awaited him after winning the Grand Prix de Rome in 1851. This admirer of Hugo expressed his talent in the graphic arts: an exceptional etcher, he contributed to the revival of etching with his “improvisations on copper”; an inspired draftsman, he created illustrations for Toilers of the Sea in 1869, then executed the drawings for The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and The Legend of the Ages, which have since become iconic Hugo works. For Le Monde illustré, he also captured in the collective memory the Parisian fires of the Commune.

This visit will be led by Mr Gérard Audinet, Director of the Maisons de Victor Hugo, Paris / Guernsey, and will be followed by a presentation of some of Victor Hugo’s sheets.

On the occasion of an exceptional partnership between the Musée Jacquemart-André and the Galleria Borghese, this exhibition presents, for the first time in France, a collection of over forty masterpieces from the famous Roman collection.

Offering a panorama of art from the Renaissance to the 17th century, it invites visitors to (re)discover the creations of masters such as Caravaggio, Bernini, Titian, Veronese, Botticelli, Raphael, Rubens, Jacopo Bassano, Lorenzo Lotto, Antonello da Messina, Giovanni Baglione, and Annibale Carracci, as well as other great artists of the time. By exploring the themes and inspirations that characterize these works, the exhibition celebrates the creative genius of these artists and the lasting legacy left by Scipione Borghese, their illustrious collector.

The Borghese collection was initiated in the early 17th century by Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli-Borghese, an ambitious man with refined taste, considered one of the greatest patrons in the history of art. Favored by his influential position as the nephew of Pope Paul V, Scipione Borghese spared no effort in developing his collection and had a sumptuous villa built in Rome to house it.

This remarkable collection has endured through the centuries, continuing to grow despite some episodes of dispersion. Transformed into a museum within the Villa Borghese, the Galleria Borghese remains a shining symbol of the cultural and artistic prosperity of Baroque Rome.

Caravage, Garçon à la corbeille de fruits, vers 1596, huile sur toile, 70 x 67 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome © Galleria Borghese / ph. Mauro Coen