# Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg (Museum of Fine Arts of Strasbourg) is the old masters paintings collection of the city of Strasbourg, located in the Alsace region of France. The museum is housed in the first and second floors of the baroque Palais Rohan since 1898. The museum displays works by non-Upper Rhenish artists from between the 14th century and 1871 and by Upper Rhenish artist from between 1681 and 1871. The museum owned 1,934 works as of 31 December 2015, this number has substantially increased since (see below). The old masters from the upper-Rhenish area until 1681 are exhibited in the neighboring Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame.

## Historical overview

The first municipal art collection of the city of Strasbourg was the result of the French Revolution, and was a consequence of the expropriation of churches and cloisters. Through the years, the collection, which was founded in 1801, grew by private donations, as well as government loans from the inventory of the Louvre. On August 24, 1870, the museum, which was housed in the Aubette on Place Kléber, was set on fire by Prussian artillery fire and completely destroyed. After the end of the Franco-Prussian War, it was resolved to re-establish the museum, and the imperial art historian Wilhelm von Bode was commissioned with the task in 1889. In 1890, the museum was launched and was re-stocked since that time by acquisitions and gifts. In 1931 under the leadership of Hans Haug (1890–1965), the collection of medieval art and upper-Rhenish painting (Konrad Witz, Hans Baldung, Sebastian Stoskopff) was transferred to the newly founded Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame. The collection of modern art went to the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Strasbourg). Haug's superior during the German occupation from 1940 to 1944 was Kurt Martin.
On August 13, 1947, fire destroyed part of the re-established collection, including works by Francesco Guardi, Thomas de Keyser, Antonio del Pollaiuolo and Lucas Cranach the Elder. However, with the money from the insurance, it was possible to acquire other artistically valuable paintings. Apart from regular purchases on the art market, the collection of the museum is also regularly being expanded by substantial donations, notably in 1987 and 1994 by collectors Othon Kaufman and François Schlageter (Italian paintings), in 2004 by collectors Roger and Elisabeth Eisenbeth (Dutch paintings,) in 2009 by the collector Ann L. Oppenheimer (Italian, Flemish and Dutch paintings), and in 2019 by the collectors Jeannine Poitrey and Marie-Claire Ballabio (mostly Italian and Dutch paintings).
In 2005 the museum reached a settlement with the heirs of Bernhard Altmann over a Canaletto that had been looted by the Nazis from its Jewish owner.

## Painters exhibited (selected)
### Italian

    Giotto di Bondone
    Sano di Pietro
    Sandro Botticelli
    Cima da Conegliano
    Carlo Crivelli
    Filippino Lippi
    Piero di Cosimo
    Cima da Conegliano
    Raphael
    Correggio
    Veronese
    Tintoretto
    Guercino
    Canaletto
    Giambattista Tiepolo
    Salvator Rosa
    Alessandro Magnasco
    Giuseppe Maria Crespi

### Flemish and Dutch

    Simon Marmion
    Hans Memling
    Lucas van Leyden
    Gerard David
    Maarten van Heemskerck
    Peter Paul Rubens
    Jacob Jordaens
    Salomon van Ruysdael
    Pieter de Hooch
    Anthony van Dyck
    Willem Kalf
    Pieter Claesz
    Christiaen van Couwenbergh
    Cornelis Engelsz

### Spanish

    El Greco
    Jusepe de Ribera
    Francisco de Zurbarán
    Francisco de Goya

### French

    Philippe de Champaigne
    Claude Lorrain
    Nicolas de Largillière
    François Boucher
    Simon Vouet
    Antoine Watteau
    Jean Siméon Chardin
    Philip James de Loutherbourg
    Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
    Théodore Chassériau
    Gustave Courbet
    Théodore Rousseau
    Edgar Degas

## Sculptors exhibited

    Baccio Bandinelli
    Alessandro Algardi
    Alessandro Vittoria
    François Girardon
    Jean-Antoine Houdon
    Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
    Antoine-Louis Barye
    Théodore-Charles Gruyère
    François Joseph Bosio
    Adolf von Hildebrand