Musée du Luxembourg

The Musée du Luxembourg sits behind a facade of heavy stone columns, nestled against the edge of the Luxembourg Garden. Marie de Medici commissioned this building in the seventeenth century to evoke the Pitti Palace of her native Florence. It opened as the first royal painting gallery accessible to the public in seventeen fifty, displaying masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. When the paintings moved to the Louvre, the building became a holding pen for living artists, often hosting rejected works from the official Salon.