Musée Calvet

The Musée Calvet, at 65 Rue Joseph Vernet in Avignon, is the city's fine arts and archaeology museum, housed in the elegant 18th-century Hôtel de Villeneuve-Martignan in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. It was founded in 1810 around the bequest of the physician Esprit Calvet and has grown into a broad collection spanning Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, medieval sculpture, wrought ironwork, and European paintings from the 16th to 20th centuries. Painters represented include Pierre Mignard, Joseph Vernet, who was born in Avignon, Hubert Robert, Jacques-Louis David's circle, Théodore Géricault, Camille Corot, Édouard Manet, Chaïm Soutine and Nicolas de Staël. The ground floor galleries contain sculpture and archaeology, while the upper floors hold the painting collection. The interior courtyard, a quiet garden space with statues, provides a pleasant break. A visit usually takes one to one and a half hours, and the museum is rarely crowded. Visitors with a particular interest in Provençal history can see locally made objects and works connected to the Avignon papacy. The building is a short walk from Place de l'Horloge and from the Musée Angladon, so the two museums are often paired on the same afternoon. Entrance is about EUR 6, and under-18s enter free. The museum is closed on Tuesdays, and a midday closure between 13:00 and 14:00 applies.