Musée de la BnF (site Richelieu)Quartier Vivienne
The museum's annual theme: nearly 150 BnF works on animals from the Middle Ages on, in three rotations, starting in the Galerie Mazarin.
Dürer never saw the rhinoceros he engraved in 1515. He worked from a written description of the animal the King of Portugal had been given, and added a shell and scales it doesn't have. Here that print opens a run of animals, starting with the medieval Roman de Renart, whose fox hero was so popular that French dropped its old word for fox, goupil, and started calling the animal "renard".
You walk the baroque Galerie Mazarin from medieval bestiaries to Audubon's life-size birds, Babar's original watercolours and Pierre Boulle's manuscript of La Planète des singes. Light-sensitive pieces mean the hang changes on 21 January and again on 19 May 2027, so a later visit sees different works.
No critic has reviewed it yet. It is part of the museum route, covered by the museum ticket (€15, €10 reduced), and Tuesdays run to 20:00.
Dürer's Rhinoceros (1515)
An armour-plated rhino with scales and a shell, drawn from a description sent to Nuremberg by an artist who never saw the animal.
The Roman de Renart
A 14th-century manuscript of the fox who lies, steals and tricks the wolf Ysengrin, a satire of feudal society.
The Beast of Gévaudan
A bound collection of the popular prints and pamphlets that spread panic about the 'bête féroce' of 1764 to 1767.
Audubon's Birds of America
Birds drawn life-size in their habitats, from the 435 hand-coloured aquatint plates of one of ornithology's great books.
Babar's shipwreck
Jean de Brunhoff's original 1932 watercolour for page 19 of Le Voyage de Babar, 'Les naufragés recueillis'.
A 15-step game trail on the visit companion sends families hunting for the animals hidden around the Richelieu site, and storytelling tours with craft workshops are planned for children aged 6 and up.
iFondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
iMAD - Musée des Arts Décoratifs
iMAD - Musée des Arts Décoratifs