What it is
The museum occupies the Palais Saint-Pierre, the former abbey of the Benedictine nuns of Saint-Pierre-les-Nonnains, rebuilt in the second half of the seventeenth century. It was founded officially in 1801 and opened in 1803.
⭐ In the nineteenth century it kept a room of flower paintings for the designers of the silk industry — the museum was, in part, a tool of the silk trade.
What is in it
An encyclopaedic collection: antiquities, medieval art, European painting from the old masters to the twentieth century. Among the prizes is The Stoning of Saint Stephen, the first known painting by Rembrandt.
Getting it right
⭐ The old cloister garden in the middle of the building is free to walk into and one of the quietest places in central Lyon.
The collection is large; choose a few rooms rather than trying to see all of it.
