Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne

You're standing at the Musée Bonnat-Helleu, the art museum of Bayonne, here in the Petit-Bayonne district. From the street you might not guess it, but behind these walls sits one of the largest art collections in the south of France. It all started with a disaster. In 1889 the town hall burned down, and the city lost a large part of its collections and archives. Painter Léon Bonnat, born right here in Bayonne, stepped in. In 1891 he offered the city his personal collection, along with many of his own paintings. The city then put up this building, designed by architect Charles Planckaert. It went up between 1896 and 1898 and served as museum, library and archive all at once. The doors opened in 1901. Bonnat ran the museum himself until he died in 1922. More gifts followed over the years. An important one came from Paulette Howard-Johnston, daughter of the painter Paul Helleu. She donated her father's work and left even more when she died in 2009. That's where the second half of the name comes from. Have a look at the buildings next door, too. From 2011 the museum was closed for years. A neighbouring school building was folded in, doubling the exhibition space from 2000 to 4000 square metres. It reopened in 2025. So what's inside? Around 1300 works are on permanent display. There's one of the most important collections of Spanish and British painting in France, with El Greco, Goya, Murillo, Constable and Turner among them. Add Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt, and French masters like Ingres, Delacroix, Géricault and Degas. And of course Bonnat and Helleu themselves. The real treasure is the drawing collection: about 3500 sheets, including work by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Dürer. Outside the Louvre, it's one of the finest in the country. Those drawings are fragile and aren't always on show. If you're hoping to see them, check the museum's website before you go.