Exhibition guide

As part of the 400th anniversary of the Navy in 2026, the National Maritime Museum invites us to take a new look at the painters from the 17th to the 20th century who witnessed the evolution of the maritime world and the conquest of the seas. This subject, little known to the general public, still little or never addressed, is treated chronologically in eight sections and nearly 150 paintings, from the rise of the Navy under Louis XIII to the modern visions of the last century.

Visit details

  • Dates: From Wednesday May 13, 2026 to Sunday August 2, 2026:
  • Venue: Musée national de la Marine, 17 place du Trocadero, Paris
  • Price: free
  • Audience: Public jeunes et adultes.
  • Source: Event page

About the exhibition

From the 17th century, the assertion of sovereign power was also manifested through the arts. While the specificity of the genre of marine painting, linked to the landscape, instills a new perception of the sea, ships and maritime environments, painters have been mobilized throughout the ages to magnify the images of the Navy and the marine universe: Le Lorrain, Vernet, Gudin, Morel-Fatio, Manet, Ziem, Signac, Marquet, Méheut and even Marin-Marie.

In addition to the diversity of genres, from picturesque to historical drama, the course focuses on the relationships between art and power, through the way in which the maritime military world and naval history have been represented. The public is invited to understand the links, sometimes complex, between the Navy and the artists, the evolution of their roles, the singularity of their careers and the variety of their statuses: painters for the king's seas, painters of the king's Navy, then painters registered in 1830 on the list of officers of the Navy (we also say "on the Navy Directory"), before the creation of a status of painters of the Department of the Navy in 1920, a prefiguration of the corps Painters commonly now called official painters of the navy (POM), without forgetting those who worked around military and artistic institutions.

46th edition of the Marine Show

The 46th Marine Show will be held from May 13 to August 2, 2026, as a continuation of the The Navy and the Painters exhibition. Four centuries of art and power.

Co-organized by the French Navy, the Association of Official Painters of the Navy and the National Maritime Museum, the Salon is part of the celebrations of 400 years of the Navy.

Placed under the theme “400 years of art and combat”, this anniversary edition compares four centuries of naval engagement and contemporary artistic creation. The Salon thus affirms the continuity of a tradition of witnessing artists, attentive to the reality of missions, to sailors and their environments.

Exhibition curator: Bertrand de Sainte-Marie, chief heritage curator, head of the conservation department of the National Maritime Museum

With the participation of the National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon

Nearly 30 lenders including: Louvre Museum, Orsay Museum, Marseille Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts of La Rochelle, Museum of Fine Arts of Tours, Museum of Fine Arts of Angers, Museum of Grenoble, Palais-Museum of the Archbishops/City of Narbonne, Roger-Quilliot Art Museum, Thomas-Henry Museum, Departmental Museum of the Château de Sceaux, National Navy, private collections…