The Italian Museum
Botticelli, Uccello and Mantegna in rooms the couple built expressly for their treasures — a miniature Florence above Boulevard Haussmann.
Christophe Recoura — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Thomon — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Thomon — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Thomon — CC BY-SA 4.0
Intimacy: a real home its collectors lived in, human-scaled, a perfect ninety minutes — closer to visiting wealthy friends' mansion than an institution. Many call it their favourite museum in all Paris.
For the museum, advisable during major shows and weekends; the tearoom takes no lunch reservations and queues form — arriving before 12:30 usually spares you the wait.
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A love-and-collecting story turned museum: banking heir Édouard André and portraitist Nélie Jacquemart, who married and devoted life and fortune to building the finest private collection in Paris inside their sumptuous Haussmann mansion — then willed it whole to France as they had lived in it, paintings on its walls, furniture in its places. The ground floor is a suite of gilded reception salons crowned by a Tiepolo fresco over the famous double staircase; above waits the "Italian Museum," the couple's sacred treasure: Botticelli, Uccello, Mantegna and Perugino in three rooms worthy of Florence. Since its 2024 restoration, the mansion glows again in its original colours. The visit's finale is a landmark in itself: the tearoom beneath another Tiepolo, among the loveliest late-breakfast rooms in Paris, its pastries famous — book the table or accept the wait; its reputation precedes it.
Botticelli, Uccello and Mantegna in rooms the couple built expressly for their treasures — a miniature Florence above Boulevard Haussmann.
A twin marble spiral beneath a Venetian fresco transplanted entire — the architectural wow moment at the visit's exact midpoint.
Pastries beneath a Tiepolo ceiling in the original dining room — the finale that elevates any museum visit into an occasion.
Boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris