The Drawing Week

Guided tour by Alice Thomine-Berrada, Chief Curator of Heritage at the Beaux-Arts de Paris

Après Michel-Ange (After Michelangelo) showcases his influence on artists from the Renaissance to the present day, thanks to the participation of around forty students under the guidance of nine teachers from the School.

Michelangelo’s achievements and life, theorised and commented on since the 16th century by his friend Giorgio Vasari, have made him a major figure whose imagination and forms have had a profound influence on artists.

Since the arrival in 1837 of the copy of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, the chapel has been at the epicentre of this fascination.

The Jean Bonna cabinet of drawings and prints juxtaposes copies, studies and reinterpretations of his works by great artists of the past, such as Géricault, Carpeaux and Rodin, with those of students.

This dialogue will be expanded in an exceptional way from 9 to 11 April in the Chapel, as well as in the left gallery and the glass courtyard of the Palais des Études.

In the Melpomene Room of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, the exhibition Des Mots et des Mondes (Words and Worlds) will be displayed alongside copies of the Prophets and Sibyls designed by Michelangelo for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Étude d’après un détail du plafond de la Chapelle Sixtine de Michel-Ange, 1856-1861, pen and brown ink on paper, 11.5 x 18.7 cm © Beaux-Arts de Paris

On the occasion of its reopening on 14 February 2026 after 17 months of renovation work, the Musée de la Vie Romantique is unveiling a completely revamped exhibition, recreating the intimate atmosphere of Ary Scheffer’s home and studio.

Gaëlle Rio, director of the museum, offers a guided tour of the permanent collections, paying particular attention to the drawings on display, which reveal the sensitivity and finesse of the Romantic style.

Ary Scheffer’s graphic works dialogue with those of George Sand, whose sketches and watercolours convey an intimate and poetic imagination. A delicate immersion in the artistic life of the 19th century, between emotion, literature and music.

MVR Paris Musées ©Pierre Antoine

On the occasion of the Salon du Dessin, the Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris will offer an exceptional visit to its Cabinet d’arts graphiques. Within this framework, the museum will present some of its finest Old Master drawings, following the theme of the materiality of artworks, which has been chosen as the focus of the Salon’s annual symposium.

The visit will explore the different types of paper used by Claude Lorrain, Rubens, and Delacroix, while also highlighting the specific characteristics of each technique, from red chalk to wash, and from black chalk to white chalk. Issues related to the conservation of these various techniques will also be addressed, using the Petit Palais’s drawn masterpieces as examples.

The visit will thus provide an opportunity to discover the many facets of the materiality of drawing, the best ways to preserve these works over time, and what distinguishes the technical mastery of the greatest artists in the history of art.

Claude Lorrain, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1663, pen and brown ink, grey wash, heightened with white gouache on formerly blue paper, 64.2 × 49 cm, Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris, DDUT1111.

The Musée de l’Armée welcomes visual artist Nicolas Daubanes, who has intervened throughout the permanent galleries devoted to the Third Republic—from the Paris Commune to the Second World War—with around thirty of his works. His sculptures, drawings, and photographs enter into dialogue with the historical displays, offering a thoughtful and striking reflection on the close relationship between art and History.

The tour will explore the major themes that have shaped Nicolas Daubanes’ artistic approach for more than ten years — notably confinement, resistance, and forms of resilience — and will highlight how these concerns resonate within the museum’s spaces.

The visit will be led by Laëtitia Desserrières, curator of the drawings collection within the Fine Arts and Heritage Department, and Julien Voinot, collections manager in the 19th Century and Symbolism Department, both curators of the exhibition.

Nicolas Daubanes, Bunker, the Escalette creeks, 2023. Magnetised steel powder, incrustation of incandescent steel on glass. © Nicolas Daubanes © Adagp, Paris 2025.

The Académie des beaux-arts celebrates the fundamental art of drawing by organizing the Pierre David-Weill Drawing Prize every year since 1971.

This competition, open to artists under the age of 40, aims to discover and support new generations of artists.

The exhibition of the winners and finalists of the 2026 edition will take place from March 12 to May 3, 2026, at the Galerie de l’Académie des beaux-arts (Galerie Vivienne, 4 rue des Petits Champs, Paris 2e), the institution’s new exhibition space.

During the Semaine du dessin, the Fondation des Artistes invites specialists and enthusiasts to discover a selection of graphic works from Baroness Adèle de Rothschild’s collection during a private tour of the cabinet of curiosities located at its headquarters in the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild.

This unique 40m2 room is the only one, along with the Rotonde Balzac, to have retained its décor and collections, comprising nearly 500 works of art from Europe, Asia, and the Orient, dating from Antiquity to the early 20th century.

This private tour by the collections manager will be an opportunity to discover the new scenography inaugurated at the end of 2025 and to admire the graphic collections up close, including astonishing pen drawings enhanced with gold formerly attributed to Dürer, a pastel by Eugène Delacroix, and watercolors by Eugène Lami.

Eugène Delacroix Jeune arabe assis dans la campagne, pastel on paper, ca. 1832, Bequest of Adèle de Rothschild, 1922, Paris, Fondation des Artistes, inv. R 1538

Since 2006, the Salon du Dessin has been organising an International Symposium around a specific theme, whose proceedings are published.

The materiality of drawing. Supports, materials, tools, uses and conservation of drawing is the theme of the study days in 2026 and 2027.

Palais Brongniart / Petit auditorium, 1st floor
Free access for holders of an access ticket to the Salon du dessin – Reservation recommended

Day 1 programme
Wednesday, 25 March – 2:30 p.m. / 6:00 p.m.

Robert Erdmann
MAD et Professeur de l’Université d’Amsterdam
Conférence inaugurale

Mauro Mussolin
Professeur Associé, Roma Tre
Fabriano or Not Fabriano? Rethinking Renaissance Papermaking Starting from Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man

Cordélia Hattori
Chargée du Cabinet des dessins, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
Les papiers et les filigranes des dessins de Raphaël à Lille

Leila Sauvage
Rijksmuseum et Maître de Conférence en Conservation- Restauration Livres et Arts Graphiques, Université d’Amsterdam
Pierre-Paul Prud’hon et les métamorphoses du papier bleu : matérialité, gestes et interprétation

Fabienne Ruppen
Conservatrice assistante, Département des arts graphiques, Kunstmuseum Basel Stripping
Cezanne. Protagonists and Purposes of Paper Additions

More information

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) Apothéose de Delacroix, 1878–80, Graphite, encre et aquarelle sur papier vélin, 20 x 23.3 cm, The British Museum, London © The Trustees of the British Museum

Since 2006, the Salon du Dessin has been organising an International Symposium around a specific theme, whose proceedings are published.

The materiality of drawing. Supports, materials, tools, uses and conservation of drawing is the theme of the study days in 2026 and 2027.

Palais Brongniart / Petit auditorium, 1st floor
Free access for holders of an access ticket to the Salon du dessin – Reservation recommended

Day 2 programme
Thursday, 26 March – 2:30 p.m. / 6:00 p.m.

Carsten Winterman
Restaurator Bestandsbereich Graphik, Klassik Stiftung Weimar
et Christien Melzer
Curator for Netherlandish and English prints and drawings before 1800, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Drawings between Stylistic History and Material Analysis: selected case studies of Dutch drawings from the 16th and 17th centuries

Carolina K. Trupiano Kowalczyk
Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca
Gaspar van Wittel : le succès d’une méthode

Yves Di Domenico
Attaché temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche, université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Les Bozzetti dessinés d’Étienne Parrocel (1696-1775), ou l’usage de techniques picturales mixtes dans la conception de ses projets

Anaïs Diez
Conservatrice-restauratrice d’arts graphiques, Paris
Approche matérielle du dessin d’architecture au xixe siècle : Alfred-Nicolas Normand et la Maison pompéienne du prince Napoléon

Marion Cinqualbre
Conservatrice-restauratrice d’œuvres sur papier, docteure en conservation-restauration
Le zip dans les dessins d’architecture : enjeux esthétiques de la standardisation à la personnalisation du rendu

More information

Étienne Parrocel (1696-1776), Loth et ses filles, Gouache, plume, encre noire, sur une page imprimée, 30,5 × 21,5 cm, Marseille, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1993-1-38, © ville de Marseille / musée des Beaux-Arts.

The musée du Domaine royal de Marly offers a guided tour dedicated to exploring the history of the Domaine, its now-lost château, its gardens, and its famous Machine, through its collection of graphic art.

The tour also provides an opportunity to discover the Work of the Season, a remarkable reprint of the 1705 Celestial Planisphere by Philippe de La Hire, bearing witness to the close ties between art and science during the reign of Louis XIV.

Tour by Paul Perrin, Chief Curator and Director of Conservation and Collections, Musée d’Orsay

This exhibition, the first dedicated to Renoir’s drawings, will highlight the importance of graphic techniques in his artistic development. It also reveals the close relationship between his paintings and his drawings, in particular from the 1880s onwards when he began to move away from Impressionism.

Auguste Renoir, Young Woman Leaning on a Balcony, also known as La Loge, 1879 © 2023 Fondation Bemberg / Mathieu Lombard

After “Treasures in Black & White. Prints of Petit Palais from Dürer to Toulouse-Lautrec”, the Petit Palais explores a major theme of its collections and acquisitions: the portraits of artists.

Through a selection around a hundred works, the project, focused on 19th Century, studies for the first time at Petit Palais the portraits of artists in a multidisciplinary approach: paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, prints, drawings and photographs.

From Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux to Maurice Denis, by way of Jean-Dominique Ingres, Jean Carriès or Louise Breslau, the four sections of the exhibition (self-portrait, affinities, studio, connections) will offer the public a pluralist approach of this profuse theme.

In parallel, Petit Palais invites contemporary women artists, working in Paris, to question the motivation of portrait, between tradition and modernity. Their works contrast through their singularity or converse with the works featured in the exhibition.

Gustave Courbet, Self-Portrait with Black Dog, between 1842 and 1844, oil on canvas Petit Palais, Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris / CCØ Paris Musées / Petit Palais

The exhibition Cartes imaginaires. Inventer des mondes invites visitors on a journey at the boundaries between reality and fiction, exploring the connections between cartography and imagination.

While maps usually trace the outlines of known lands, they also give shape to imaginary territories that extend, interpret, or personalize the real world.

Lopo Homem, Atlas Miller, Gulf of Siam (detail), 1519. BnF (Department of Maps and Plans)

The 2026 edition of the Salon du Dessin provides the Department of Prints and Photography with an opportunity, in connection with the Rencontres internationales, to present the work carried out in the restoration and conservation of artworks.

A guided tour of the restoration studio will be led by Nadège Duqueyroix, Head of the Studio, and Pauline Chougnet, Curator in charge of the drawings collection.

Restoration workshop of the Prints Department, Richelieu site

Adya and Otto van Rees. At the heart of the avant-garde

United by love and a shared passion for art, Otto van Rees (1884–1957) and Adya van Rees-Dutilh (1876–1959) established themselves as major figures in the European avant-garde, engaged in a boundless artistic quest from the early 20th century onwards. Settling in 1904 at the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, they rubbed shoulders with Picasso, Chagall, Van Dongen, and Mondrian.

The Musée de Montmartre is honored to present the first retrospective exhibition in France dedicated to this Dutch artist couple, who remain largely unknown today. It explores the modernity and evolution of their respective arts, between Divisionism, Symbolism, Cloisonnism, Cubism, and Abstraction.

Otto Van Rees, Agave, 1906, Oil on canvas, Private collection © Adagp, Paris, 2025

The Gustave Moreau Museum, in collaboration with the Manufactures nationales presents a dossier exhibition devoted to the remarkable restoration of a previously unpublished large-scale drawing by Gustave Moreau for The Siren and the Poet.

Held in the context of the national commemorations marking the bicentenary of Gustave Moreau’s birth (6 April 1826), the exhibition will take place alongside the Salon du Dessin.

In 1894, Gustave Moreau received a commission for a tapestry cartoon for the Gobelins Manufactory on a theme he had already explored two years earlier: The Siren and the Poet. He notably undertook the execution of a large preparatory drawing intended for the Manufactory, to be used in the weaving of the tapestry, which was completed in 1899. In this monumental format, the artist transposed his Symbolist vision, combining decorative refinement, dreamlike mystery, and pictorial mastery.

The restoration of this drawing, rediscovered in 2023 during an inventory campaign at the Mobilier national, has provided the Gustave Moreau Museum with an opportunity to take a fresh look at this commission and to bring out of storage several preparatory works related to the tapestry, which will also be on display.

A visit to the dossier exhibition will allow visitors to enter into the intimate world of one of Moreau’s singular works. It will trace the genesis and completion of The Siren and the Poet, revealing the richness of a creative process situated at the crossroads of artistic disciplines.

Gustave Moreau, The Siren and the Poet, charcoal and white chalk on paper, 340 x 240 cm, Paris, Mobilier National, GBA 425 (c) Mobilier National / Isabelle Bideau