Timeless Tintoretto

Now showing11 September 2026 – 24 January 2027€19

The first comprehensive survey in France of the Venetian master Tintoretto, tracing his audacious compositions and dramatic light from the Renaissance to his influence on 19th-century French painting.

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On now All of November 2026

In Tintoretto's Leda and the Swan, the myth sits in the upper half of the canvas and the joke sits below it. Apollo's Ben Street points to a cat and a duck squaring up under the scene, which turns the mythological coupling into farce.

About forty paintings and graphic works, lent by French, Italian and international collections, follow his whole career, from The Miracle of the Slave (1548) to a late self-portrait hung next to Manet's 1854 copy of it. The hang is thematic, and the museum's angle is what 19th-century French painters took from him: bold colour, dizzying perspectives, dramatic light. A cat eyeing a duck while the gods carry on overhead is every Paris flat at 7am.

Street calls the show both intimate and rigorous, while some visitors find the selection a little short. Tickets are €19 (€10 for ages 7 to 18), and the museum stays open until 10pm on Fridays.

Editor's pick

The first comprehensive Tintoretto survey in France: crowded Venetian compositions and theatrical light, traced forward to the 19th-century French painters who studied him.

Look for

Leda and the Swan (c. 1578)
The mythological coupling is undercut by a farcical cat-and-duck exchange in the lower part of the canvas.
Susanna and the Elders (c. 1555-56)
A woman bathes while voyeuristic elders watch her, with a rose trellis between them and her.
Self-Portrait (c. 1588) beside Manet's copy
The late self-portrait is paired with the copy Manet made of it in 1854.
Orpheus imploring Pluto (c. 1541-42)
An underworld scene painted with energetic, visible brushwork.