Musée National Picasso-Paris

The Musée National Picasso-Paris is in the Hôtel Salé at 5 Rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris's 3rd arrondissement. The mansion was built in the 1650s for a salt-tax collector, which gave it its name, and its stone staircase, sculpted ceilings and panelled rooms were restored for the museum, which opened in 1985. The collection came to the French state in the 1970s and 1980s in lieu of inheritance tax after Picasso's death, and it is unusual for including works that the artist had kept for himself, comprising more than 5,000 works and archives, among them paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics and engravings, as well as Picasso's personal collection of works by Cézanne, Matisse, Rousseau and others. The chronological hang runs from the early Blue and Rose periods through Cubism, the Surrealist years, and the late work of the 1960s and 1970s. A visit usually takes 90 minutes to two and a half hours. The rooms are modestly sized, so the museum can feel busy on weekends and during exhibitions, with weekday afternoons and the first hour after opening being calmer. Photographers enjoy the main staircase and the garden courtyard. The top-floor attic spaces, which show sculptures, ceramics and the artist's personal collection, tend to see fewer visitors than the main painting galleries. A café in the garden and a bookshop are available on site. The museum is within walking distance of the Musée Carnavalet, the Place des Vosges and other Marais sights. The museum was renovated and extended in the early 2010s, adding gallery space in the mansion's attics and basement, and its displays are regularly rotated, so the exact selection of works on view changes from visit to visit. Exhibitions often set Picasso's work in dialogue with other artists, and the museum's archives, which include letters, photographs and the artist's own sketchbooks, are used for research and for thematic displays on his methods.