In Touch With the Intimate Museums of Paris

You’ve done the Louvre marathon, you’ve swooned in front of the Musee d’Orsay’s Renoirs and Van Goghs, and you’ve survived the grubby gantlet surrounding the Pompidou (Beaubourg).

By now you’ve resigned yourself to the idea that the price of art in Paris is long lines and pushy crowds.

What if someone were to tell you that there are museums in central Paris with magnificent collections, priceless masterpieces, and with average attendance figures in the double figures? That’s 25 to 50 visitors. Per day .

They do exist. And there are three of them within a few minutes’ stroll of each other, just north of the Champs-Elysees.

Each one offers a look at how a real person put together a collection of antiquities and art that was to be lived with and enjoyed every day in a home.

Enter any one and you get to share that particular splendor that was Belle Epoque Paris, at the height of its power and self-confidence. And it’s entirely possible you’ll have the rooms to yourself.

You can visit all three in a single tour but any one would make a fine morning or afternoon.

Musee Jacquemart-Andre: Set on the busy Boulevard Haussmann, the Musee Jacquemart-Andre has a rear entrance, curved to allow carriages to spiral up to the doorway.

The once-spacious grounds have been taken over by office and residential buildings, but the house retains much of its character.

Wealthy art lover Edouard Andre built the house in 1869 to house his already extensive collection of Renaissance bronzes and ceramics, Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries, 18th-Century furniture, and, his favorite, sculpture from 16th-Century Italy and 17th-Century France.

His marriage to the painter Nelie Jacquemart in 1881 was also a joining of artistic temperaments. Well-connected to political and artistic circles, she joined with her husband in searching out the finest art for their showplace home, combining her taste for 18th-Century paintings with his for the 17th-Century.

Seven of the rooms on the ground floor have the lighthearted feel--both frivolous and formal--of the Louis XV furnishings that fill them.

The mood is quickly set by two lovely and fleshy Boucher paintings in the first reception room. But the Grand Salon is the best expression of this 18th-Century sensibility.

The cream and gilt paneling, taken from a house built in 1735, provide a beautiful backdrop for graceful furniture, carpets, porcelain and framed tapestries.

The rooms to the east house an eclectic collection of tapestries, sculptures, and porcelains. Paintings include works by Fragonard, Reynolds, LeBrun, Watteau, Riisdael, Van Dyke, David, and Rembrandt (“Portrait of Dr. Tholleux” and an unusual “Le Pilgrim”), among many others.

Passing back through the Grand Salon you enter the first Italian room.

Two of my favorite pieces are here, side by side. The room contains a smashing Uccello, St. George slaying a delightfully sinuous dragon while a fair maid watches, almost indifferently. Next to it in an entirely different mood, is a stunning portrait by Mantegna of Christ flanked by his tormentors.

Next door a room contains a famous Bernini bust of Pope Gregory XV, but it is the large Tiepolo mural filling the end of the room, that draws the eye.

Ascending one of the dual, curved staircases to get closer to the fresco, you are led to the upper floor and Renaissance galleries filled with Italian treasures. Donatello provides two infant angels, while paintings by Sellaio, Bellini and others line the walls.

Mme. Andre, on her death in 1912, bequeathed the house and its contents to the privately owned and operated Institut de France. It operates about 15 museums in Paris and other parts of France, including the Marmottan and the Chateau of Chantilly.

Musee Nissim de Camondo: In 1911 Count Moise de Camondo began to fill his family’s gracious 18th-Century home with fine furnishings and art, mostly from the 18th Century. His son Nissim, an aviator, was killed in World War I, and on the count’s death in 1935 the home became a museum and a memorial to the lost heir. The count’s surviving daughter, Beatrice, her husband and two children all died at Auschwitz.

No hint of those dark days appears in the house. Passing through a charming, spacious entry, you ascend a grand stairway to the “first floor” and its three large, light-filled salons.

Whatever the excesses of the 18th Century, the times allowed a generation of artisans to produce objects of great beauty for a wealthy and appreciative aristocracy.

The oval “Salon des Huet” is a particularly elegant example of that attention, with large pastoral paintings by Huet, fine furnishings, paneled walls and colorful carpets. Through the French windows on one side you look across a spacious terrace and formal gardens to the lovely Parc Monceau. It is not too hard to imagine yourself taking tea here surrounded by conversation and music.

Upstairs are the family’s private rooms. Nissim de Camondo’s bedroom is as he left it in 1917. The furnishings of the count’s bedroom are impressive and well worth a look.

But the highlight of this floor is the grand salon, the “family room” of the house. One wall is filled with windows, filling the room with light and giving a pleasing view of the park. Again, the furniture is 18th Century, each piece with an impeccable pedigree, but each chosen for comfort that goes far beyond formality.

This must have been a family that cherished its moments together. I was especially taken with one 19th-Century painting--a view of the backs of six red-coated gentlemen, it is the antithesis of formal portraiture, and totally charming.

In fact, this room impressed me so much the first time I saw it that I returned just to see it again and try to understand better the mind of Moise de Camondo, who so carefully and knowledgeably blended art and family life.

Musee Cernuschi: Wealth and business brought the Italian financier Cernuschi, a friend of Garibaldi’s, to Paris, where he built this house in the mid-1800s. The rigors of the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870 and the violence of the ’71 Commune drove him away from the capital.

He traveled the world for three years and returned, determined to put together a collection of Oriental art, then little-known in the West. Arguably, the explosion of artistic expression at the end of the century in France can be traced to this influx of art from the East.

As fine as the house is, it is the art that takes center stage here. The collection covers Chinese art from 3000 BC to the 13th Century and includes pottery, porcelain, painted silk, bronze statuary and paintings.

Porcelain and terra-cotta funerary figures, the inescapably coquettish miniature courtesan, the priestly zodiacal figures--each piece seems to vibrate with expression and depth. The celadon bowls and vases are perfect in shape and shimmering with rich glazes.

Also there’s the “Horses and Grooms” painted silk scroll. Acquired for the Cernuschi in 1956, it was found in a cave in 1900 and dates to the 8th Century (Tang Dynasty). It is one of the most stunning works I’ve ever seen and it alone is worth a trip to the Cernuschi.

But there is more. The grand atrium staircase leads to the upper floor and a huge gallery built to contain a monumental bronze Buddha. The statue dominates but in no way diminishes the delicate pottery, porcelain and paintings that share the room.

A section of the wall is hung with scrolls and a display of calligraphy is arranged chronologically to demonstrate its development.

There are many other small museums in Paris that offer similar experiences. The Michelin Green Guide lists about 85. By seeking them out you gain not only the pleasure of discovering their various themes and treasures, but you will be led to discover for yourself more of the real Paris, where art and the art of living are to be found everywhere.