Located in the former Abbey of St. Denis, the Musee des Beaux-Arts is renowned for its collection of 12 Cranach portraits and also for over 20 Corot landscapes. We visited here first and bought a combination ticket which got us into the St. Remi Museum as well as the Art Museum.
The street-level gallery has the Corot landscapes as well as cases of Faience and other ceramics and pottery. The stairs leading to the second floor are a work of art themselves with their beautiful banister.
On the second floor, the Cranach portraits are all in one room. Another room has the Life of Christ in Peinture Toile which is painting on cloth. The placement of pictures in this museum is attractive. One room, though, where they have the Dutch paintings, has a portable stand in the middle of the room holding paintings which was distracting. I found corners of the museum very photogenic. One had a case of Daum and Galle vases backed by some oil paintings. Another was a case of pastoral figurines after the manner of Boucher, which were made in Strasbourg. I really loved a Philippe de Champagne portrait of the Habart children which is very reminiscent of Van Dyke's children of Charles I.
Among their other treasures is a beautiful little Renoir, maybe 2 inches by 4 inches, called "Le lecture du role", Pizarro's "L'Avenue L'Opera" with that hazy yellow look he often ha and a horribly gruesome "Death of Marat" by Louis David. This is a nice small museum, just enough to keep your interest without being too much.
Musee des Beaux-Arts
8 Rue Chanzy
Reims, France
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