Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V...
All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!
O is for Orsay...Musée d'Orsay
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| Musee d'Orsay on a winter morning. |
This is another one of those - a museum in a stunning building that in itself is a thing of extra ordinary beauty and a joy forever - like the Guggenheim but in a totally different way. Orsay is an artspace housed in a converted railway station with a super dramatic story of its own. Read that over here.
In short, it was built on the left bank of the Seine for the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900, to bring in people from SW France to the main Exhibition sites. Gare d'Orsay was the first station designed for electric trains, so no steam or soot or smoke and therefore the architects were able to cover the station with a high glass ceiling. However, it became obsolete by the late 1930s because its platforms were too short to accommodate the longer electric trains. From 1940s onwards it was used for a mishmash of things - as film location, as political venues, as a temporary centre to hold prisoners and deportees. It came close to demolition in the 1970s and redeveloped into a modern, vastly different looking hotel. Thankfully, it was saved from that in the nick of time! - the Ministry of Public Works refused planning permission. The station and its hotel were therefore restored and Musée d'Orsay was inaugurated in 1986.
The Musée d'Orsay has a collection of over 18,000 artworks spanning paintings, sculptures, photographs and architectural elements focussing on a specific period of 1848 to 1920ish. It picks up where the Louvre leaves off with respect to Western art, especially the Impressionist and post-Impressionist artists. Orsay has a premier set of artworks by super renowned masters like Monet, Renoir, Manet, van Gogh, Cezanne, Rodin and Degas. Must see works there include
- Woman with a Parasol - Claude Monet, 1875. Incidentally, Orsay has a collection of nearly 100 paintings by the artist and is one of the topnotch art galleries to view his works, including the Blue Water Lilies (1919) and Wild Poppies (1873)
- Starry Night over the Rhone - Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Orsay's collection includes more than 20 of his works including the Self Portrait painted in 1889 and The Church at Auvers (1890).
- La Classe de Danse (The Ballet Class) - Edgar Degas (1874-76). The museum hold over 100 artworks by Degas, including paintings, pastels, drawings and some of his bronzes.
- Apart from the above, the collection includes several significant works by Renoir, Manet, Gauguin, Courbet, Whistler, Cezanne and several others. Among the sculptures are preeminent works by Rodin, Carpeaux, Gauguin and Degas and other French masters.
The Musée d'Orsay is the second most visited museum in Paris and ranks consistently among the top ten art galleries visited globally. It attracted 3.75 million visitors in 2024 and around 3 million in 2010, the year I was there. I had half a day in the museum, totally not enough, one could spend an entire week in there. I'd visit again if I had the chance, and this time, I'd allow some time to go to Claude's garden in Giverny to see his lily pond that inspired him.
Read more about the Orsay by clicking on the link here, here and here. JFYI, the museum is renovating its reception areas from March 2026 to 2028, so please check what's accessible for viewing if you're planning to visit.
O is also for the unfinished Obelisk
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| Image credit |
This one is in the Aswan quarries in Egypt, thought to be commissioned by Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BCE, we've met her earlier in my H-post) for the Temple of Amun Ra in Karnak. It was likely abandoned halfway because of flaws discovered in the stone. I visited it sometime in 2011, it is even more impressive up close, walking round the whole things is quite good exercise. My camera at that point didn't have the capacity to fit the entire obelisk into a single frame. The Obelisk is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is visited by thousands everyday.
Had it been successfully completed, it would have stood 42 metres high, higher than any other Egyptian obelisk. And weighed a mind boggling 1168 tonnes too! - to be floated down the Nile to Luxor, a distance of 200 odd kms and then erected to stand vertically like a pointing finger at the sky. All without a single unit of electric or steam energy, on human sweat and muscle power and willpower alone. Hats entirely off!
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Did you know that this interior clock, originally designed to guide travellers in Gare d'Orsay has become an iconic symbol of the museum? It is one of the most photographed areas in the space and offers stunning views of the Seine and Montmartre through its glass dial, accessible to visitors from the top floor.
There are actually three monumental clocks in the museum, two on the exterior facade and one inside. They were designed by French architect Victor Laloux (1850-1937) as part of the station in 1900. These Beaux Arts and Art Nouveau style clocks blend industrial functionality with Belle Epoque aesthetic values and have become signature pieces of the museum and popular exhibits in themselves.
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Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!
Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026
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