About the museum
A house of pictures on Rue de Rivoli
Luminart keeps and shows painting, sculpture and the decorative arts in the heart of the Marais. We are a working museum — open every day, built for the long look rather than the quick pass-through.
From a private cabinet to an open door
Luminart opened in a townhouse that once held the collection of a single Parisian family. When the last of the pictures were left to the city, the rooms were cleared, the light was reworked, and the doors were set open to anyone who wished to walk in. What was once a cabinet for a few became a gallery for the street.
We have kept the scale of a house on purpose. The rooms are small enough to cross in an afternoon and quiet enough to return to a single canvas twice. Nothing here is designed to move you along.
Four centuries, one continuous thread
The permanent collection runs from seventeenth-century portraiture to the quiet still lifes of the twentieth, with a standing room given over to sculpture and another to furniture, ceramics and glass. We do not try to hold everything — we hold work that speaks to the work beside it.
Alongside the permanent rooms, two temporary galleries change through the year, borrowing from collections across Europe and lending our own pieces in return.
Hung by hand, lit by season
Every hang is planned in the room itself, not on a screen. Our conservators adjust the lighting as the seasons turn, so that a canvas painted for winter daylight is not drowned in July sun. The labels are short by design — enough to place a work, never so much that you stop looking at it.
We train our gallery hosts to answer questions rather than deliver scripts. If you ask about a frame, you will get an answer about that frame.
A museum you can reach
Entry is free on the first Sunday of each month, and always free for residents under eighteen. The ground floor and both temporary galleries are step-free, seating is placed in every room, and large-print labels are available at the desk. Our hosts are glad to guide anyone who would rather not navigate alone.
We run morning sessions for schools and quiet hours for visitors who prefer the galleries without a crowd — ask at the desk or write ahead.
On Rue de Rivoli, open every day
You will find Luminart at 18 Rue de Rivoli, a short walk from the river and the Hôtel de Ville. We open at ten and close at six, seven days a week, with the ticket desk closing half an hour before the galleries.
- 18 Rue de Rivoli, 75004 Paris
- 01 42 68 53 17
- visit@luminart.paris