Musee Jacquemart Andre

Today I spent the afternoon at one of my favorite museums in Paris, the Musee Jacquemart Andre. The museum, on the Boulevard Haussman, is a stone's throw from the Arc de Triomphe. Originally, it was a private residence of Edouard Andre and his wife Nelie Jacquemart. They had a taste for art and for traveling, and thanks to an impressive banking fortune, they were able to amass an amazing collection of art, including Botticelli, Tiepolo, Rembrandt, Fragonard, and van Dyck. There's also lots of beautiful architectural aspects, including a specially-designed marble staircase (it's the middle thumbnail on the right).

Another big reason that I went there was to see the temporary exhibits from one of my favorite artists - Jacques-Louis David who's famous for a lot of his neoclassical paintings, his Napoleon paintings, and one of my favorite (and admittedly not uplifting) paintings, The Death of Marat. My friend Zeke Williams would also be happy to know that David did the Oath of the Horatii - I was able to see a small version of it there.

In a city that's filled with prestigious museums like the Louvre, Pompidou, and Orsay, it's nice to find something a little less hectic and a little less touristy.