The story
The fine-arts museum of Chartres stands where you might least expect a quiet gallery: pressed against the eastern end of the great cathedral, in the former bishop's palace, a run of buildings from the 15th to 18th centuries with terraced gardens looking over the lower town.
The collection reaches from a Zurbarán and still lifes by Chardin to Fauvist pictures by Vlaminck, who lived nearby, and a small room of old harpsichords. One picture people come for is Chaïm Soutine's Choirboy, painted while the artist stayed just outside Chartres as the guest of his patron Madeleine Castaing.
An Oceanic collection, brought back by travellers, sits oddly and pleasantly among the French rooms.
