240 years after their last visit, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI are back at the Château de Fontainebleau for a major exhibition organised in collaboration with the Grand Palais Rmn.

Through their many stays there (seven visits between 1774 and 1786), marked by significant political and family events, these sovereigns demonstrated their attachment to Fontainebleau. The remarkable interiors that have been preserved (the Turkish Boudoir, the Silver Boudoir, the Queen's Grand Cabinet, the King's Powder Room, the Salle des Buffets, the Chapel of the Trinity, etc.), created under the direction of the architects Richard Mique, Nicolas-Marie Potain and Pierre Rousseau, still bear witness to this golden age within the château.

More than 120 remarkable works connected with the château (portraits, drawings, sculptures, objets d'art, etc.) have been brought together thanks to loans from some twenty prestigious institutions, both French and foreign (the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre Museum, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon...) and offer a glimpse into court life on the eve of the Revolution, with a particular focus on theatre and music.

The result of extensive research, this exhibition highlights the work of the last sovereigns of the Ancien Régime at Fontainebleau.

Exhibition curator: Jean Vittet, Chief Curator at the Château de Fontainebleau.

Francisco de Zurbarán, along with Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, is considered one of the greatest Spanish painters of the 17th century. At first considered a Caravaggista with a focus on monastic ascetism, he was gradually recognised in the 20th century as a prodigious colourist and celebrated for his distinctive personal style, which married a simple treatment of volumes with striking naturalism

In 2026, in order to mark the hundredth anniversary of the artist's death, the Musée d'Orsay is organizing a major exhibition devoted to Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). In France, this will be a long-awaited event: its national museums have never devoted a major exhibition to Mary Cassatt, an active member and pillar of the impressionist group. Her centenary provides an opportunity to examine the central place occupied by this prominent artist who, through talent and determination, succeed in forging a unique identity in late 19th- and early 20th-century art history, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Comprising almost 80 paintings, pastels and prints, and covering the whole of the artist's career, "Mary Cassatt: L'indépendante / Mary Cassatt: Being independent" opens up new perspectives on her work, drawing on unpublished letters and never before exploited sources. Rarely shown works from public and private European collections will be presented, along with paintings and pastels from American collections seldom exhibited outside the United States.

A selection of Cassatt's early works and portraits of her loved ones shows how the artist's social milieu, travels and knowledge of the art of the past shaped her approach and practice. Making it a point of honor to be independent (originally at her wealthy family's request), she soon set herself up in her own studio and started employing paid sitters. In a largely male environment, and against a background of latent nationalism, she rapidly succeeded in establishing herself as a professional painter. 

Curatorship

Paris

Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Graphic Arts and Paintings Curator, Musée d'Orsay;

Anne Robbins, Curator of Paintings, Musée d'Orsay;

London

Sarah Moulden, Senior Curator of 19th Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery;

Boston

Erica Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings, Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

From 6 October 2026 to 7 February 2027, the Musée national Picasso-Paris presents the exhibition "Kurt Schwitters. Le chaos-monde. 1918-1948", a major retrospective of an artist who stood apart from the Dada movement, from the constructivism and the German abstract art scene, and whose work has not been exhibited in France for over thirty years. Bringing together over three hundred works and documents - paintings, sculptures, blends, collages, drawings, sketchbooks, photographs, books and archives - the exhibition offers an immersion into an exceptional formal and conceptual richness world. It also highlights the link between Schwitters' work to that of Picasso, particularly in their approach to experimentation, blend and transformation of everyday materials.

Exhibition curators

Cécile Godefroy, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Curator of Painting and
Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York

Johan Popelard, Chief Heritage Curator, Acting Scientific and Collections Director, and Head of the Conservation and Collections Department at the Musée national Picasso-Paris