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Paul Delance, Grève à Saint-Ouen — Family Histories exhibition

Musée d'Orsay · 7e arrondissement

Family Histories

Upcoming16 March 2027 – 18 July 2027·€16

Traces how the family, regulated by the Civil Code and reshaped by first-wave feminism and shifting notions of the couple, became a key subject for 19th-century artists depicting modern society.

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On nowOpening in March 2027

Preview: written before the show opened

In the section on brothers and sisters, the Tournachon brothers are still fighting over which of them owned the name Nadar. A few steps on, Alfred Stevens paints a brother and sister by the sea at Honfleur, and Odilon Redon's pastels work through the death of a child before his second son was born.

Orsay built the show from its own collections: paintings, sculpture, photographs, film, drawings and archives on the ways of being a family in France between 1848 and 1914. You start with family and politics, then walk through five sections: the home, motherhood, fathers and inheritance, siblings, and couples, from Monet and Camille Doncieux to Verlaine and Rimbaud. The motherhood section is titled "Be a mother and keep quiet", which makes this a brave pick for the Fête des mères outing.

It's in the Seine Gallery on level 0, open until 9.45pm on Thursdays. The reception areas are being renovated until summer 2028, so check Orsay's access page before you go.

Look for

  • Degas's Bellelli Family

    One of Degas's large portraits of an extended family, hung in the "Home Sweet Home" section with Tissot's and Bazille's family groups.

  • Louis Lumière's Le Déjeuner de bébé

    Look for this early film of a baby being given breakfast, screened among the paintings.

  • The Countess of Castiglione

    Pierre-Louis Pierson's photographs of the countess, Orsay's own "bad mother" case study, in the motherhood section.

  • Objects that held a family together

    Photograph albums, phonograph cylinders and cuddly toys sit in the section on fathers and inheritance.

  • Rosa Bonheur's menagerie

    Bonheur's household of animals at Thomery, shown with the first films about bonds between animals and people.

Good for

  • Evening Visits
  • Nerding Out

With kids

Orsay offers the show to school classes from age 6, with guided tours from age 11. Sections cover the loss of children and abandonment, so preview them with younger kids.

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