DRAWING WEEK

On the initiative of the Salon du dessin, the museums of Paris and the Ile de France region celebrate drawing….

Since its creation in 1999 by the Salon du dessin, the Drawing Week is present in very varied places, like the drawings presented there.

Again this year, the Drawing Week is  a chance to compare drawings from the past with contemporary sheets, thus seducing both collectors and connoisseurs, those familiar with them and the youngest bargain hunters. And of course, it will allow exchanges and dialogues with specialists.In this context, each participating museum organises private visits of its collections or its temporary exhibitions.

These private tours are free and only available by reservation, subject to availability.
Reservations are made on the website of the Salon du dessin only, and you can register for a maximum of 2 events.
To register, click on "RSVP", then complete and send the form.
A first message confirming your registration will be sent to you followed by a second one, 48 hours before the event, containing the practical information necessary for your visit.

Please make sure that you do not register for two visits with the same or very similar times.
Due to the limited number of places for each visit, registrations are processed as they are received.

Please be aware that these visits are organised by the curators and directors of the museums.
Any visit booked but not honoured will automatically make it impossible to register for the forthcoming years. 

NEW TOUR

FONDATION CUSTODIA

Tour of the Hôtel Turgot

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This tour of the Hôtel Turgot includes a presentation of the reception rooms and selected works from the Frits Lugt Collection by director Stijn Alsteens.

Vestibule, hôtel Turgot © Philip Provily

Private visit | 15 people
Monday 24 March at 3 p.m.

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LAST PLACES

MUSÉE NATIONAL DES CHÂTEAUX
DE MALMAISON ET DE BOIS-PRÉEAU

Appiani (1754-1817)
The painter commissioned by Napoleon in Italy

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The exhibition presents the sensitive, monumental and intimate style of the greatest Milanese artist of his time: the beginnings of a painter trained in the eighteenth century, scenes from Napoleonic history and the nascent republic, portraits of Napoleon and Josephine, and preparatory studies and drawings for the decoration of private mansions and churches.

The tour will be led by Rémi Cariel, Chief Heritage Curator at the Musée National des Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau and curator of the exhibition.

Andrea Appiani, Portrait de Giuseppe Vallardi, 1795-1798, Huile sur toile, 24,8 x 19,4 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, Venise © G.A.VE - Archivio fotografico – “su concessione del Ministero della Cultura”

Private visit | 10 people
Monday 24 March at 3 p.m.

RSVP

Le nombre maximum de réservations a été atteint pour cette visite The maximum number of bookings has been reached for this visit

COMPLETE TOURS

BIBLIOTHÈQUE MAZARINE ET DE L'INSTITUT

Discover remarkable pieces
from the graphic art collections

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Quai de Conti, Mazarine and Institut de France libraries are grouped as the second national collection for their written and graphic heritage. Drawing – whether artistic, satirical, scientific or technical – take there pride of place.

During the Drawing Week, they invite you to discover, in the heart of their two magnificent reading rooms, remarkable pieces from their respective collections, rich in strong and complementary identities.

Bibliothèques de l’Institut de France, Charles Percier, « Vue animée d'un palais et de ses terrasses en bord de mer au Pausilippe à Naples », Voyage à Rome. Bibliothèque de l’Institut, ms 1009, fol.131, pièce 251 - Photo : Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France

Private visit | 20 people
Wednesday 26 March at 6 p.m.

ACADÉMIE DES BEAUX-ARTS

Private visit to the exhibition of winners and nominees
of the Pierre David Weill Drawing Prize

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Private visit to the exhibition of winners and nominees of the Pierre David Weill Drawing Prize.

The Prix de Dessin Pierre David-Weill - Académie des beaux-arts was created in 1971 by Pierre David-Weill, a member of the Académie des beaux-arts, to encourage the practice of this essential creative gesture among new generations of artists.

The prize supports artists under the age of forty who use drawing techniques, and thus contributes to the emergence of new talent in this discipline.

Private visit | 30 people
Thursday 27 March at 10 a.m.

MUSÉE GUSTAVE MOREAU

Gustave Moreau and Italy

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"Italy […] is neither the land of dreams nor the land of sweet indolent existences. It is better than that. It is the land of work and contemplation; nature there is of a solemn cheerfulness, so noble that it does not awaken in your soul for a single moment any impression other than that of a grave and pure love for what is good and beautiful."

Gustave Moreau wrote these words to his friend Eugène Lacheurié a few months after his arrival in Rome, in December 1857.

That year, after two successive failures at the Prix de Rome, the young painter decided to travel to Italy at his own expense and embark on his "Grand Tour." Wishing to refine his skills and renew the historical painting of his time, Gustave Moreau traveled throughout Italy for two years. Staying in Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples, he copied ancient works and paintings by old masters that fascinated him, such as those of Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, or Carpaccio.

Throughout his life, Gustave Moreau would retain a deep nostalgia for this journey. The Italian copies, which he carefully kept around him and displayed in his house on Rue de La Rochefoucauld, often resonated in his own works and, later in life, in his teaching at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

This thematic visit will allow participants to discover numerous drawings and watercolors from the Gustave Moreau Museum, through the lens of the Symbolist painter's journey in Italy.

Cabinet de réception du musée Gustave Moreau © Jean-Yves Lacôte

Private visit | 15 people
Thursday 27 March at 10 a.m.

BEAUX-ARTS DE PARIS

Travel drawings by artists
from the 18th to the 20th centuries

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The 2025 edition of the Salon du Dessin offers Beaux-Arts de Paris the opportunity to present, in conjunction with the Rencontres Internationales, a selection of drawings on the theme of travel.

Visitors to the show will be able to view a selection of works, brought out of storage for the occasion, bearing witness to the travels of artists from the 18th to the 20th centuries, from François Cassas' stay in Palmyra to Vincent Bioulès' visit to Italy.

 

Louis-François Cassas, Caravane de l’artiste attaquée par des brigands sur la route de Palmyre, mai 1785, Beaux-Arts de Paris, inv. 2024.5.1, don des Amateurs de dessins des Beaux-Arts de Paris. © Beaux-arts de Paris, distr. RMN-GP / photog. Thierry Ollivier

Private visit | 15 people
Thursday 27 March at 10.30 a.m.

FONDATION TAYLOR

Eugène Viala (1859-1913)
The Ash of the Dream

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Bringing attention to the work of underrecognized artists is one of the guiding principles of the Fondation Taylor’s historical exhibitions. The Fondation Taylor will host an exhibition from March 13 to May 3, 2025, dedicated to Eugène Viala (1859–1913), featuring nearly 80 etchings and preparatory drawings.

Born in 1859, Eugène Viala was a multifaceted artist: etcher, poet, painter, and watercolorist. A free-spirited, even anarchistic artist and a lover of nature, Viala lived a tragically impoverished life, yet he never abandoned his fierce determination and creative fervor. At the start of the 20th century, Maurice Fenaille - a prominent industrialist and patron of Rodin, Camille Claudel, and Bourdelle - offered his support to Viala’s work. Works by Eugène Viala gradually entered the collections of the Denys-Puech Museum, which dedicated several exhibitions to him in 1920, 1930, 1959, and 2021. In 2025, the Fondation Taylor will continue this legacy with an exhibition in Paris.

The fantastical and visionary dimension of his work places Viala within the lineage of painter-etchers who, from Francisco de Goya to Rodolphe Bresdin and Odilon Redon, embraced the evocative power of ink’s deep blacks.

Exhibition from March 13 to May 3, 2025 at the Fondation Taylor in collaboration with the Denys-Puech Museum in Rodez and with the contribution of a private collector

 

La Tour de Peyrebrune, étude au lavis [entre 1888 et 1898], Plume et lavis à l’encre noire, Cat. 44, rubrique « Rapprochements », Collection particulière

Private visit | 20 people
Thursday 27 March at 2.30 p.m.

FONDATION DES ARTISTES

Presentation of miniatures and old drawings
from the Auguste Lesouëf collection

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For the “Semaine du Dessin”, the Fondation des Artistes is organizing a private tour of its artists' estate in Nogent-sur-Marne (fifteen minutes from Paris), and in particular of the Bibliothèque Smith-Lesouëf, a heritage jewel built at the beginning of the 20th century.

Welcomed by the Fondation des Artistes’ head of collections, visitors will be able to take a closer look at the 80 drawings, prints and miniatures dating from the Renaissance to the 19th century and collected by the great bibliophile Auguste Lesouëf.

These works, deposited by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, have recently been restored and are currently the subject of research.

Salle de lecture de la Bibliothèque Smith-Lesouëf © Stéphane Pons / Fondation des Artistes

Private visit | 10 people
Friday 28 March at 2:30 p.m.

INHA

Traveling artists in the heritage collections
of the library of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art.

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Travel is a major source of inspiration for artists and an essential stage in their training.

A practice shared by all scholars (art lovers, collectors, archaeologists...), between the experience of remoteness and the discovery of another universe, they are a wonderful opportunity to multiply contacts and experiences, to see and think differently about the world.

Through examples drawn from the heritage collections of the library of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (sheet drawings, manuscripts, archival documents, correspondence), this tour will explore the ways in which drawing enabled traveling artists to describe an unknown universe they were discovering, to express an emotion or to imagine other places.

Alexandre de Laborde, Dessin ayant servi à illustrer le Voyage pittoresque et historique de l’Espagne, vers 1800 (MS 463).

Private visit | 20 people
Friday 28 March at 5.30 p.m.

MUSÉE CONDÉ, CHÂTEAU DE CHANTILLY

The World of Watteau

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Private tour of the exhibition by Baptiste Roelly, Curator of Drawings, Prints, Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris.

As mysterious as he is celebrated, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) is a rare artist. The Musée Condé has the second-largest collection of his works in France after the Louvre. A wide range of paintings and drawings, some never seen in public before, from French and international collections, will be displayed alongside the permanent collection as part of this exhibition, helping visitors discover the artist's most outstanding works.

Characterised by subtlety and often hidden emotions, his compositions are unrivalled in their poetic sensibility and explore love, friendship, music and dance alongside the universal themes of rejection, ridicule, unrequited love and solitude, helping explain why Watteau's drawings and paintings remain as powerful and relevant today as ever.

Exhibition from 8th March to 15th June 2025 at the Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly

Lead curator:
Mathieu Deldicque, Lead Heritage Conservator, Director of the Musée Condé and the Musée Vivant du Cheval, Château de Chantilly.

Scientific curators:
Axel Moulinier, Doctor of Art History. Baptiste Roelly, Curator of Drawings, Prints, Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris.

Antoine Watteau, Jeune femme assise à terre, vers 1715, sanguine, 20,3 x 19,3, Chantilly, musée Condé, copyright GrandPalaisRmn - Domaine de Chantilly-Thierry Ollivier

Private visit | 15 people
Saturday 29 March at 10 a.m.

MUSÉE DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS

Free pass
for exhibitions and collections

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Free Pass valid once for the whole year 2025 for all exhibitions and collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

Book online at the “Free for pass holders” rate
or Free ticket at the ticket office in exchange for pass.

Free Pass | 30 people
Until 31 December 2025

MUSÉE DELACROIX

Discover the graphic arts collection

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The visit to the Musée National Eugène-Delacroix will showcase its collection of graphic arts on the occasion of its new exhibition "Is it a Delacroix? The Art of Copying": drawings by Delacroix, including a little-known study for Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi and Liberty Leading the People, prints related to Medea and his journey to Morocco...

Two sketchbooks filled with drawings and notes used by Eugène Delacroix during his trip to England from May to August 1825, which were acquired by the museum in 2019, will be exceptionally brought out from storage. Through the pages, we follow the painter from Calais to Dover and then to London, in London parks or at the British Museum. Delighted with what he sees, he writes to his friend Charles Soulier: "This city is magnificent and very different from ours in many ways."

Eugène Delacroix, Shakespeare's cliff, May 1825, graphite on paper Credit: GrandPalaisRMN (Musée du Louvre) / Tony Querrec

Private visite | 10 people
Tuesday 25 March at 11 a.m.

PALAIS BRONGNIART

XVIIIth Salon du dessin International Symposium
Day 1

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XVIIIth Salon du dessin International Symposium ”Travel drawings”

Under the direction of Marco Simone Bolzoni,curator of Old Master and 19th century drawings from the Debra and Leon Black collection, New York.

See the list of speakers and details of the programme

Palais Brongniart / Petit auditorium, 1st floor

Wednesday 26 March from 2.30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

PALAIS BRONGNIART

XVIIIth Salon du dessin International Symposium
Day 2

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XVIIIth Salon du dessin International Symposium ”Travel drawings”

Under the direction of Marco Simone Bolzoni,curator of Old Master and 19th century drawings from the Debra and Leon Black collection, New York.

See the list of speakers and details of the programme

Palais Brongniart / Petit auditorium, 1st floor

Thursday 27 March from 2.30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

PETIT PALAIS

The sketchbooks of Alexandre Nozal,
artist traveler

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Private visit to the Petit Palais, in the Researchers' Area of the Department of Graphic Arts

This tour, organized within the Petit Palais' Graphic Arts department, under the 1900 metal framework, will showcase the drawing and travel sketchbooks of Alexandre Nozal (1852-1929).

A collection of works by this painter and landscape draughtsman with a passion for travel was donated to the museum in 2019 by his descendants.

Echoing the permanent exhibition room devoted to plein-airism, this special moment around fragile and rarely exhibited works will evoke the technical processes, itineraries and plein-air practice specific to Alexandre Nozal.

 

Alexandre Nozal, La Seine en amont de Saint-Cloud, crayon graphite, aquarelle et gouache sur papier, Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, don famille Nozal, 2019, CC0 Paris Musées / Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris

Private visit | 10 people
Thursday 27 March at 4 p.m.

MUSÉE JEAN-JACQUES HENNER

Drawings from Jean-Jacques Henner's trip to Italy
& visit to the
‘Elles, les élèves de Jean-Jacques Henner’ exhibition

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Private presentation, in closed museum, by Maëva Abillard, chief curator of the museum, of a selection of drawings made by Jean-Jacques Henner during his journey in Italy (1859-1864).

Visitors will then be invited to discover the museum’s current exhibition intitled « Elles, the pupils of Jean-Jacques Henner ».

Musée national Jean-Jacques Henner,
Vue de l’atelier gris © Jean-Yves Lacôte

Private visit | 14 people
Friday 28 March at 10 a.m.

MUSÉE DU LOUVRE

The Experience of nature.
The arts in Prague at the court of Rudolph II

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A great patron of the arts and sciences, Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612) was one of Europe's most enthusiastic rulers for the study of nature. He called to his court scientists and artists from all over Europe, who worked in close proximity to each other within the castle’s walls, turning Prague into a veritable laboratory, a place of experimentation, in a climate of intellectual and religious tolerance. In developing this new relationship with nature, the arts and sciences influenced each other. The ambition and novelty of this undertaking, rich in promise for the first developments in experimental science, make it possible to rethink the Prague melting pot at the time of Rudolf II, less as the last fires of the Renaissance autumn than as the promising budding of modernity.

Organized in partnership with Prague's Národni Galerie, this exhibition brings together one hundred works by artists such as Joris Hoefnagel, Ottavio Miseroni, Paulus van Vianen and Roelandt Savery, in a variety of techniques (graphic arts, decorative arts, sculptures, paintings, scientific instruments, printed manuscripts), mostly executed in Prague and commissioned or purchased by Rudolf II for his Kunstkammer. They come mainly from Prague collections and the Louvre, but also from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin and the Observatoire library in Paris.

Private visit | 25 people
Friday 28 March 10 a.m.

MUSÉE DE MONTMARTRE

Pass for the permanent collections

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Pass for the permanent collections

Valid once, for one person, on 29 March 2025 only, no specific time slot required

The museum, surrounded by gardens, served as a creative space for numerous artists, including Auguste Renoir, Émile Bernard, Raoul Dufy, Charles Camoin, and the "Infernal Trio" of Suzanne Valadon, André Utter, and Maurice Utrillo, whose studio has been meticulously reconstructed.

The permanent collections of the Musée de Montmartre showcase a unique selection of paintings and graphic arts dedicated to the history of the Butte, the artistic vibrancy of its studios, and the atmosphere of its famed cabarets.

A temporary display is currently focused on representations of the human body, centered around Valadon.

Free Pass | 20 people
Saturday 29 March

MUSÉE DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS

Free pass
for exhibitions and collections

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Free Pass valid once for the whole year 2025 for all exhibitions and collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

Book online at the “Free for pass holders” rate
or Free ticket at the ticket office in exchange for pass.

Free Pass | 30 people
Until 31 December 2025

BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE

Views on the Indian World:
Presentation of Indian Miniatures
from the Department of Prints and Photography

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With more than 2,500 paintings, the collection of Indian miniatures in the Department of Prints and Photography is, in terms of numbers, the largest such collection held in France.

The majority of these works were integrated into the royal collections in the 18th century through acquisitions or donations from private collections, such as that of the knight Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil (1726-1799).

Visitors will be guided to the Rotunda of the BnF museum (Richelieu), where some of these miniatures are displayed, and then to the Department of Prints and Photography, where other albums will be presented.

Kakubha râginî. Dpt Estampes, Od-49-4.

Private visit | 15 people
Monday 31 March at 2.30 p.m.