French art museum nicknamed ‘Little Louvre’ reopens after 14 years

A major French art museum dubbed the ‘little Louvre’ has reopened after 14 years.

The Musée Bonnat-Helleu closed in 2011 for a major renovation. Located in Bayonne, a city in the Basque Country, the fine art museum houses an extensive collection of French Old Masters said to rival the Louvre’s.

Founded in 1891, the museum has undergone a facelift to the tune of €35m (£30m) and officially reopened on 27 November.

It is now home to some 7,000 works, spanning from Antiquity to the 20th-century, including works from Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rubens and Goya.

Bayonne was home to a new generation of artists in the late 19th-century and the museum is named after the two painters Léon Bonnat and Jean Helleu.

“Female artists are among our priorities for future acquisitions,” the museum’s head of collections, Hélène Ferron, told The Art Newspaper.

The 3,000 sq. m. display area has doubled in size, with the major restoration incorporating Giandomenico Facchina’s mosaic floors, the central courtyard’s diamond-shaped roof and a neighbouring school building.

A café, gift shop, storage spaces, restoration studio, offices, exhibition rooms, a research centre and a study room for drawings also form part of the new space.

The museum hopes to double its pre-renovation intake of visitors taking it to between 60,000-80,000 per year.

“Emotion is key to our museum experience, we want it to feel welcoming, not intimidating,” added Ferron.

The museum has a host of reduced and free ticket options, including free entry for art students, job seekers, benefit recipients, children and people with disabilities.

Full-price tickets cost €9 (£7.90), with a reduced entry free of €6 (£5.30) for those aged between 18-26-years-old.

Read more: The best museums you should visit in the UK, from contemporary art to local history exhibitions