Exhibition guide

The Orangery Museum, in collaboration with the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, organizes a monographic exhibition around painter Henri Rousseau, gathering major loans from international institutions. This co-production will be inaugurated in October 2025 in Philadelphia and presented at the Orangerie Museum from 25 March to 20 July 2026. On this occasion, the Orangery Museum will be the first to benefit from loans from the Barnes Foundation's collection, bringing together in an unprecedented way an important corpus of works by Henri Rousseau, who has been in the hands of merchant Paul Guillaume.

Visit details

  • Dates: Wednesday 25 March 2026 to Monday 20 July 2026: Friday from 09:00 to 21:00 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday from 09:00 to 18:00
  • Venue: Musée de l'Orangerie, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris
  • Price: Tarifs bientôt disponibles.
  • Audience: All audiences
  • Source: Event page

About the exhibition

This collaboration is evident in the history of the two institutions: Paul Guillaume, whose collection forms the heart of the Musée de l'Orangerie, was the intermediary of Albert Barnes for the purchase of his eighteen paintings from Rousseau. He himself was a fervent collector of the artist, having possessed up to fifty works from the artist's hand, according to the documentary albums kept in the museum's fonds. Nine of them are now part of the Orangery Museum's collection, with a recent acquisition of two small portraits. The exhibition and its catalogue will come back to this close collaboration between the Parisian merchant and the American collector, and more broadly to the network of collectors and merchants in which the painter registered during his lifetime. About 50 works will be presented on this occasion, from the collections of these two institutions and from loans of key works by European and American institutions, including The Sleeping Bohemian, masterpiece of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

This exhibition looks at the career of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), his pictorial practice and his professional ambitions. Coming to Paris from his native Mayenne, he decided at the age of 49 to retire from the grant to devote himself entirely to painting. The artist has been able to diversify genres and techniques to make a place on the Parisian artistic scene: compositions sent to the Salon des Indépendants, replies to public orders to decorate the city halls of Île-de-France, portraits ordered by his entourage, landscapes intended for sale, or even more intimate self-portraits. The exhibition aims to go beyond the legends surrounding the name of the " Douanier Rousseau" to study in depth his artistic journey. Thematic sections will address the materiality of the works and place them in the context of the modern art market in which Paul Guillaume and Albert Barnes have participated widely.

To engage the two most important collections of the artist with major works from international public collections is the opportunity to study a large corpus from the perspective of materiality. As such, recent scientific analyses conducted by the Barnes Foundation provide insight into the artist's pictorial practice. In parallel, the collection of the Orangerie was studied by the Centre de Recherche et de Restoration des Musées de France (C2RMF), in order to complete this collection. In the journey, a digital device will make it possible to value these scientific analyses, proposing to the public to enter more concretely into the study of the materiality of the works and revealing the creative process of Rousseau.