Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau was founded in 1864 on the initiative of the Société des Amis des Arts de Pau and its president, Charles Le Coeur, the first curator. First installed in the Parliament of Navarre, he moved in 1881 to the former asylum of the city. Its collections are enriched by donations from the La Caze collection and purchases financed by an annual rent left by lawyer Émile Noulibos.

In 1929, a new building was built by architect Jacques Ruillier, financed by the promoter Henri Lillaz in exchange for land for the Pyrénées Palace. Inaugurated in 1931, the museum closed in 1942 for problems of sealing and reopened in 1953 after work. Its architecture, combining classicism and Art Deco, breaks with the Fine Arts museums of the time.

The collections cover European art from the 16th to the 20th century, with major works such as The Cotton Office in New Orleans by Edgar Degas. In 2019, the museum was redesigned to integrate the old library, now home to the School of Art and Design of the Pyrenees. In 2024, a sketch of Murillo, stolen in 1907 from the Prado, was identified and temporarily returned.

The museum also preserves archaeological pieces, such as the mummy of Yumerithot reported in Egypt by the Baron of Laussat. His acquisitions reflect the tastes of successive conservatives, with a preference for the modern and contemporary French school, notably thanks to the Noulibos fonds.

The history of the museum is marked by successive moves, tensions with the Society of Friends of Arts, and aborted architectural projects, such as Gustave Umbdenstock's in 1924. Today, there remains an architectural example of the 1930s and a central cultural place in Pau.

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