Musée d'Orsay Permanent Collection

 John and I went back to the Musée d'Orsay to have a look at their permanent collection.

We started on the beautifully laid out main floor galleries.

 These galleries feature 19th century painting and sculpture. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's sculpture, Ugolin (1863) seemed to be purposely looking away from Couture's huge painting of Roman decadence but the tour group were all eyes.. 

We love Camille Claudel's L'Age mur, 1897

and this lovely Barbizon painting,  Frédéric Bazille's Réunion de famille also called Portraits de famille, 1867.

 The D'Orsay has moved its paintings by Van Gogh and Gauguin from the 5th floor to the galleries on one side of the central space. These galleries are crowded with visitors making viewing difficult -- Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles, 1889.

The galleries also contain some nice Symbolist works like Odilon Redon's Head of Orpheus and Flight from Egypt (c 1840-1916)

 and beautiful studies like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Femme de profil ou Madame Lucy, 1896.

 I liked Antoine Bourdelle's sculpture, the Archer on the mezzanine set against the fabulous clock from the old railway station that was converted into the museum.

The famous Impressionist collection on the 5th floor has been renovated. It no longer is a series of small cramped rooms but now occupies much larger galleries that better accommodate the big crowds that make the pilgrimage to the D'Orsay. That's me taking a snap of

Claude Monet's version of Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1865/1866.

John zeroed in on Henri Fantin-Latour's  Un atelier aux Batignolles (1870) with it's group portrait of artists and poets of his period including Verlaine and Baudelaire on the left.

and Barbizon painter, Charles-François Daubigny, on the right with one of Fantin-Latours lovely images of plant life.

Degas' young dancer sculpture surrounded by admirers.

 John and I are not always fans of the work of Pierre Auguste Renoir but this lovely little painting Jeune femme à la voilette, (circa 1870) is a charmer.

John's detail of the above.

  and we loved Frédéric Bazille's portrait of a relaxed, young Pierre Auguste Renoir (1867).

 We are also both intrigued by the early work of Paul Cézanne like this Pastoral ou Idylle, 1870

and this somewhat mad Modern Olympia, 1873-1874.

and his mature portraits like this one of  Gustave Geffroy (1895-1896).

John's detail of the above.

John is a master of the details of gallery settings. Here he caught a relaxed museum guard.

Claude Monet, Le Repos sous les lilas, 1872-1873

Camille Pissarro. Diligence à Louveciennes. 1870 

 Édouard Manet. Le Citron, 1890 (above) and L'Asperge, 1880.

 We both loved Édouard Manet's Berthe Morisot a l'eventail, 1872. Very playful.

and here is Berthe Morisot's lovely study,  Femme a sa toilette, 1877.

 The Impressionist galleries ended with this large work by Spanish Impressionist, Joaquin Sorolla. Retour de la Peche; halage de la barque. 1894. We were introduced to Sorolla's work a few years ago in Madrid where he is much esteemed.

John's details of the above.

And so ends our little tour of the Musée d'Orsay collection with another of the clock faces

from the 19th century Exposition railroad terminal building

and its view of of the Tuileries across the Seine and Sacre-Coeur in the distance.