Visit of the collections / temporary exhibition

  • visites-muse-e-bonnat-helleu-oct-2025-89-mathieu-prat-5

Presentation

The permanent museum tour will allow visitors to explore around twenty rooms spread over three levels.
They will (re)discover nearly 1,200 restored pieces, from the Middle Ages to the 19th century: paintings, drawings, sculptures… masterpieces by some of the greatest artists.

To know

The Bonnat-Helleu Museum presents an outstanding collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, art objects, and archaeological pieces. It houses works by some of the greatest European artists: Rubens, Van Dyck, El Greco, Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, Géricault, Degas, Barye, Bonnat, Helleu…
The Department of Graphic Arts, for its part, boasts over 3,500 exceptional drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Dürer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Poussin, Watteau, and many others.

The collection now includes nearly 7,000 works, thanks to acquisitions by the City as well as major donations and bequests (Bonnat in 1922, Personnaz in 1937, Petithory in 1992, Howard-Johnston in 1989 and 2010).

Some emblematic works include Portrait of Léon Bonnat by Edgar Degas, Bayonne Triptych by Henri Zo, Portrait of Lieutenant Dieudonné by Théodore Géricault, Adam and Eve by Michelangelo, and Portrait of the Duke of Benavente by El Greco.

 

Key Figures
1,300 works have been restored in preparation for the Museum’s reopening.
3,000 works on loan from the Louvre Museum.
4,000 m² dedicated to the display of the permanent collections — twice as much as before.
7,000 works in total, thanks to numerous donations and bequests.
300 m² for the inner courtyard, now open to the public.
53% of the cost of the Museum’s extension and renovation was funded by its partners.

Availability