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A creation of the Revolution, the Musée des Beaux-arts de Rouen was established by the Chaptal decree of 1801, though the first inventories of the new public collection date back to 1790. The Museum was initially housed in a Jesuit church and opened to the public in 1799, before moving to the new Town Hall, where it was inaugurated in 1809 with a catalogue of 244 paintings. The collections were enriched in spectacular fashion during the 19th century. Democritus by Velázquez came with the collection of the painter Gabriel Lemonnier, one of the museum's founders; in 1844, Delacroix requested his masterpiece, The Justice of Trajan, be loaned to Rouen; works by natives of the region: Poussin, Géricault. Purchases and donations (Clouet, Van Dyck, Puget, Ingres, Moreau, Traversi…) soon accounted for more of the collection than the works seized by Napoleonic decree and allocated in 1803 (Gérard David, Veronese, Rubens).
History and Architecture

The Collections

15TH-21ST CENTURY PAINTING

15TH-21ST CENTURY SCULPTURE

16TH-20TH CENTURY DRAWINGS

The collection, one of the largest in France, includes European paintings, sculpture, drawings and objets d'art from the late Middle Ages to the present day. Each period features some exceptional works, with the 17th (Caravaggio, Velázquez, Poussin) and 19th centuries being particularly well-represented. One room is devoted to Géricault, and the Depeaux donation brought Rouen the most important Impressionist collection outside Paris, with famous works by Monet and Sisley. An active acquisition and exhibition policy is focusing on modern and contemporary art.