The story
The most striking object in the Nîmes fine arts museum lies under your feet. The central hall is floored with a Roman mosaic of the marriage of Admetus, a king from Greek myth, laid in the 2nd century and found in 1883 during work on the city's market halls. In a city that still has its Roman arena and the temple known as the Maison Carrée, that find feels at home, and the museum itself started life inside the Maison Carrée, where the collection was first shown from 1821.
When the temple grew too small, the city held a competition in 1902. The architect Max Raphel won it, and his building on the Rue de la Cité Foulc opened in 1907, with two large statues by the sculptor Henri Bouchard flanking the entrance stair. In 1987 the Paris architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte reworked the interior.
The paintings run from Italian masters such as Jacopo Bassano, through Flemish and Dutch pictures that include a portrait of a Capuchin friar by Rubens, to French painting of the 19th century. The canvas many visitors look for is by Paul Delaroche and shows Oliver Cromwell lifting the coffin lid to look at the body of the executed King Charles the First. Two painters born in Nîmes, Charles-Joseph Natoire and Xavier Sigalon, have their own place in the rooms.
