How long does a visit to the Musée Gustave Moreau last?

Actual time, floor by floor

I timed the question for the people I accompany, because it comes up every time. The house is visited from the bottom up, then you go back down the same way. Here is how a standard visit is divided.

Ground floor, 10 to 15 minutes. Six small rooms overlooking the garden, four of which display drawings and copies after Italian masters. The reception room, restored in 2003, is where you understand that Moreau designed this house as a museum during his lifetime. Most visitors pass through too quickly; yet this is where the copies that explain the origins of his painting are found.

First floor, the apartment, 15 to 20 minutes. Dining room, bedroom, boudoir, hallway, and study-library, open to the public only since 1991. It is dense, cluttered, very 19th-century, with Degas’s portrait of Moreau among the family mementos. Those in a hurry skip it. This is a mistake, as this is the part that gives meaning to the term “house-museum.”

Second floor, the large studio, 20 to 30 minutes. The walls are covered with canvases from floor to ceiling, including The Chimeras (1884), The Unicorns, Orpheus at the Tomb of Eurydice, and a good portion of the drawing cabinets. This is where time stretches, and this is where the spiral staircase begins.

Third floor, the very large formats, 15 to 25 minutes. Jupiter and Semele (1895), The Return of the Argonauts (1891-1897), The Daughters of Thespius. You look up. I detail all of this on the page works to see.

The drawing cabinets change everything

Over 13,000 drawings are stored in pivoting shutter cabinets that Moreau designed himself. You leaf through them standing up, one panel after another. Opening all the shutters of a single cabinet takes ten minutes if you really look. There are several on both studio floors. This is what turns a visit of an hour and a quarter into two hours, and it is, for me, what you won’t find in any other museum in Paris.

Three ways to fill the day

A visit of an hour and a half leaves half a day free, and the neighbourhood lends itself to it. Here are the three combinations I most often suggest.

Moreau then Orsay. In the morning here at opening time, then line 12 from Trinité to Solférino, about twenty minutes door to door. At Orsay are hung Orpheus (1865), Galatea, and Jason, the paintings by Moreau that the general public knows. A guided tour of Orsay in the afternoon for two hours neatly closes the loop, and the Moreau ticket entitles you to a reduced rate at Orsay.

Moreau then Palais Garnier. A ten- to twelve-minute walk south. The self-guided tour of the Palais Garnier takes one to two hours. Two nineteenth-century interiors, one intimate, the other overwhelming, in the same half-day.

Moreau then Montmartre. A twenty- to twenty-five-minute climb via Pigalle. A guided walk in Montmartre in the late afternoon, when Place du Tertre empties, is my favourite when the weather is fine.

What I tell people in a hurry

Forty-five minutes is enough to go straight up to the studios, walk through the large formats, and come back down via the spiral staircase. It’s frustrating, but it’s better than nothing, and it’s doable between two appointments. Anything less is no longer a visit.

To check the closing times, the opening hours page has all the details. And if you plan to visit several national museums during the week, the Paris Museum Pass includes the Musée Gustave Moreau, Orsay, and the Louvre: it’s the simplest option for a busy stay.

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