| Musée des beaux-arts de Tours | |
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The Musée des beaux-arts de Tours |
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| Established | 4 March 1795 |
| Location | 18, Place Francis Sicard, 37000 Tours |
| Type | Art museum |
| Website | Official site |
The Musée des beaux-arts de Tours (English: Museum of Fine Arts of Tours) is located in the bishop's former palace,[1] near the cathedral St. Gatien, where it has been since 1910.[2] It displays rich and varied collections, including that of painting which is one of the first in France both in quality and the diversity of the works presented.
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In the courtyard, there are a magnificent cedar of Lebanon[3] and stuffed elephant in a building in front of the museum. This elephant was killed for madness during a circus parade "Barnum & Bailey" in the streets of Tours on 10 June 1902.
The museum gets over 12,000 works but only 1,000 are shows to the public.[4] On the ground floor, the museum has a room especially dedicated to Tours art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.[5]
The monument has been classified as monument historique on 27 June 1983.[6]
The museum has a large and fairly homogeneous collection of paintings, which includes several masterpieces such as two paintings by Andrea Mantegna, from the predella of the San Zeno Altarpiece: