The story
The fine-arts museum of Agen, a market town in south-west France, fills four Renaissance mansions of pale stone built around courtyards. Its reputation, though, rests on Spain. In 1901 a local diplomat, the Comte de Chaudordy, left the museum a rare group of paintings by Francisco de Goya.
Among them is a small self-portrait from 1783, the painter staring out of the canvas with fierce concentration, together with other Goya scenes that are unusual to find outside Spain. The rest of the collection runs from Italian and Flemish old masters to 19th-century French painting, and includes an ancient Greek marble Venus unearthed in the countryside nearby, while the medieval vaulted cellars beneath the mansions hold the archaeology.
For now the mansions are closed. The museum shut on 30 November 2025 for a major renovation, and no reopening date has been announced. From 29 October 2026 part of the collection is on show in the Jacobins church, a 13th-century Dominican church in the town centre.
