Ingres Bourdelle Museum

No matter where you stand along the Tarn River banks, your eyes are drawn to a towering brick building everyone in Montauban knows very well. It’s the Ingres Bourdelle Museum, housed in the former 17th-century Episcopal Palace. This cultural institution dates to 1820, back when it was but a modest municipal museum. No one could have imagined the artistic prestige it would one day hold. When the renowned painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres died in 1867, he gifted his entire studio collection to the museum, over 4,500 drawings, about sixty paintings, and even a violin, his other great passion after painting. To honor this prodigious local, the museum soon took on his name. But as you’ve probably noticed, Ingres isn’t the only name gracing its façade. Antoine Bourdelle, another major figure from Montauban and a gifted sculptor, later joined the museum’s ranks by donating over 70 of his works. Beautifully renovated between 2017 and 2020, the Ingres Bourdelle Museum now welcomes visitors in a fully redesigned, modern setting. With permanent and temporary exhibitions, workshops for all ages, a bookstore, and a tearoom, it truly caters to all interests. Perhaps even yours!