The Musee d'Orsay contains one of the most magnificent collections of 19th- and early 20th-century art in the world. Limited to the years between 1848 and 1914, the collection showcases Impressionist and Postimpressionist favorites by Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, Van Gogh, Seurat, and Signac. In addition, Realist, Nabis, Symbolist, and Fauvist movements are represented in works by Millet, Gauguin, Redon, and Matisse. The light-filled galleries are also ideal for viewing the sculpture. Works in other media include furniture, objets d'art, architecture, photography, jewelry, and glassware. This book's color plates depict many of the masterpieces, and the text traces the roots of the core collection within the context of developing and changing art trends.

The paintings of the Musée d'Orsay. An exceptional collection. Built up over time through purchases by the state, donations and bequests from artists, collectors and patrons, and also thanks to an active acquisitions policy, the Musée d'Orsay's collection of pictures today constitutes an exceptional holding represented by the greatest names and schools of painting between 1848 and 1914: - official art (history painting, portraits and classic landscapes); - symbolism (Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, Redon); - realism (Courbet, Fantin-Latour); - the Barbizon school (Corot, Millet, Rousseau); - impressionism (Caillebotte, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley); - post-impressionism (Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec); - the Nabis (Bonnard, Denis, Vuillard). For its new hanging in the picture galleries, the Musée d'Orsay is highlighting its extraordinary masterpieces to offer the public an increasingly complete yet fresh survey of that fruitful and varied era, one of the most creative and abundant in the history of art. Published for this occasion, the volume presents 300 works in an order that is both chronological and thematic, thereby offering a comprehensive overview of the history of painting of the period, with the didactic intent of rendering it accessible to the widest possible public.

On August 21, 1911, Leonardo da Vinci’s most celebrated painting vanished from the Louvre. The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young provocateurs of a new art. The sensational disappearing act captured the world’s imagination. Crowds stood in line to view the empty space on the museum wall. Thousands more waited, as concerned as if Mona Lisa were a missing person, for news of the lost painting. Almost a century later, questions still linger: Who really pinched Mona Lisa, and why? Part love story, part mystery, Vanished Smile reopens the puzzling case that transformed a Renaissance portrait into the most enduring icon of all time.

In this book beloved examples of Post-Impressionism from one of the world's premier art museums provide a splendid overview of innovations ushered in by the popular movement. Representing a pivotal moment in the history of European art, the Post-Impressionists created some of the most recognizable and stylistically inventive paintings of the modern era. Published to accompany a major exhibition, this book presents over one hundred celebrated paintings from the unparalleled collection of Paris's Musee d'Orsay. Focusing on the decades around 1900, this publication presents late Impressionist landmarks by Monet and Renoir; early modern masterpieces by Cezanne, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh; and avant-garde canvases by the Nabis painters Denis, Bonnard, and Vuillard. The volume also provides a unique look at the Muee d'Orsay's outstanding collection of Pointillism, including works by artists such as Seurat and Signac. Together these works offer a fresh assessment of seismic transitions in the European art world at the turn of the twentieth century that ushered in the birth of modern painting and produced lasting treasures of its own.