Museum of Fine Arts, Nancy, France

The Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy is one of the oldest museums in France. Established in 1793, the museum is housed in one of the four large pavilions on the Place Stanislas.

In 1930, the town council decided to convert the building into a museum in order to host the fine art collection hitherto held in the city hall. In 1999, the art historian Jacques Thuillier donated a huge collection of drawings (2,000) and engravings (13,000) to the museum.

Some of the painters whose work is featured in the collections are Perugino, Tintoretto, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour, Charles Le Brun, Ribera, Rubens, Claude Gellée, Luca Giordano, François Boucher, Eugène Delacroix, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Paul Signac, Modigliani and Picasso.

References:

Wikipedia

Museums in France

User Reviews

Pierre Koung (15 months ago)
One sentence : it is a beautiful place.

Maxim Hachem (2 years ago)
Amazing pieces from different years.

Wilco Wetzels (2 years ago)
Lot of great art pieces, whose all got the attention they need. Downside, much arts from the 17th century instead of from different time periods. The historical touch in the basement is a good addition. I would recommend this place.

Kyle Toussaint (2 years ago)
Beautiful museum, they were still taking visitors in virus times but imposing strict mask rules and hand sanitizer. Respect. Amazing collection.

Antoine M (2 years ago)
What a place to have one stunning museum of fine arts than to be in one of the pavilions of the Stanislas square! It's one of the oldest museums in France and one spectacular place to visit. It costs €3.50 to enter. Wheelchair friendly, there's lifts as well as beautiful spiral staircases, public convenience, no restaurant inside (as far as I can tell). There's three major exhibition levels here and I suggest starting from the top and work your way down all the way to the last exhibition in the basement level underneath the main entrance pavilion. Paintings range from the early sixteenth century to modern art and sculptures. It's a comprehensive collection and I spent a good hour and a half going through most of the collection. Of interest perhaps is the Jean Prouvé works and the Daum collection of crystal wear at the lower ground level. Besides the spectacular building and the square its located in, this museum of fine arts is a must visit if you are visiting the gorgeous city of Nancy in the Lorraine district of France. Suitable for all ages and tastes in arts.

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Broch of Gurness

The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village. Settlement here began sometime between 500 and 200 BC. At the centre of the settlement is a stone tower or broch, which once probably reached a height of around 10 metres. Its interior is divided into sections by upright slabs. The tower features two skins of drystone walls, with stone-floored galleries in between. These are accessed by steps. Stone ledges suggest that there was once an upper storey with a timber floor. The roof would have been thatched, surrounded by a wall walk linked by stairs to the ground floor. The broch features two hearths and a subterranean stone cistern with steps leading down into it. It is thought to have some religious significance, relating to an Iron Age cult of the underground.

The remains of the central tower are up to 3.6 metres high, and the stone walls are up to 4.1 metres thick. The tower was likely inhabited by the principal family or clan of the area but also served as a last resort for the village in case of an attack.

The broch continued to be inhabited while it began to collapse and the original structures were altered. The cistern was filled in and the interior was repartitioned. The ruin visible today reflects this secondary phase of the broch's use.

The site is surrounded by three ditches cut out of the rock with stone ramparts, encircling an area of around 45 metres diameter. The remains of numerous small stone dwellings with small yards and sheds can be found between the inner ditch and the tower. These were built after the tower, but were a part of the settlement's initial conception. A 'main street' connects the outer entrance to the broch. The settlement is the best-preserved of all broch villages.

Pieces of a Roman amphora dating to before 60 AD were found here, lending weight to the record that a 'King of Orkney' submitted to Emperor Claudius at Colchester in 43 AD.

At some point after 100 AD the broch was abandoned and the ditches filled in. It is thought that settlement at the broch continued into the 5th century AD, the period known as Pictish times. By that time the broch was not used anymore and some of its stones were reused to build smaller dwellings on top of the earlier buildings. Until about the 8th century, the site was just a single farmstead.

In the 9th century, a Norse woman was buried at the site in a stone-lined grave with two bronze brooches and a sickle and knife made from iron. Other finds suggest that Norse men were buried here too.

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