Gustave Moreau Museum Paris: Tickets, Hours & Visit Guide (2026)
The Symbolist painter who built a museum for himself before he died. Two cathedral-like studios, a wrought-iron spiral staircase, and 25,000 works. Tickets €8, free first Sundays. How to visit in 2026.
The Gustave Moreau Museum is the one museum in Paris the artist built for himself. Before he died in 1898, the Symbolist painter turned his family home in the 9th arrondissement into a monument to his own work — knocking through floors, raising two cathedral-like studios, and leaving thousands of paintings to the French state on the condition that nothing be moved.
It opened in 1903 and has barely changed since. You walk into a painter's brain, arranged exactly as he wanted it.
In 3 minutes
- Tickets €8, free for under 18s, EU 18–25, and everyone on the first Sunday of the month
- Open daily except Tuesday, 10:00–18:00
- The two upper studios are the reason to come; the spiral staircase between them is the photo everyone takes
How much is the Gustave Moreau Museum in 2026?
A standard ticket costs €8. The reduced rate is €6. Under 18s enter free, as do EU residents aged 18 to 25 with ID. Entry is free for everyone on the first Sunday of each month, but those days draw a crowd into a small space, so the museum asks you to reserve a slot in advance — without one, entry isn't guaranteed.
One ticket does more than you'd expect. It also covers the Musée Jean-Jacques Henner, another artist's house-museum a 15-minute walk north, if you visit within 72 hours. And for two weeks after your visit, the same ticket gets you a reduced rate at the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Guimet, the Palais Garnier, and the Musée de la Vie Romantique nearby.
The Paris Museum Pass includes the Moreau, but at €8 the pass only earns its keep if you're pairing it with the Louvre, the Orsay, or other costlier sites the same week. Run the numbers in our Paris Museum Pass guide before you buy.
Where to book
Our take: Book direct. At €8 with frictionless online booking, there's no reason to pay a reseller, and the museum almost never sells out on a normal day. Reach for the Paris Museum Pass only if the Moreau is one stop on a heavier museum week.
Gustave Moreau Museum opening hours
The museum is open every day except Tuesday, 10:00 to 18:00. Last admission is 17:30, and rooms start closing 15 minutes before the doors. It's closed on 1 January, 1 May, and 25 December.
One honest warning: staff strikes led to sudden, unannounced closures across 2025 and into 2026. The museum updates its homepage every morning when this happens. If you're crossing the city specifically for this, check the site or call +33 1 83 62 78 72 before you set out.
There's a quirk worth planning around. The ticket only guarantees the second and third floors — the two studios. The ground floor and Moreau's first-floor apartment open when attendance is low, which is most weekday mornings, but not on busy afternoons. Arrive when the doors open at 10:00 and you'll likely catch all of it.
How to get to the Gustave Moreau Museum
The address is 14 rue de La Rochefoucauld, 75009 Paris, in a quiet residential pocket of the 9th between Pigalle and the Trinité church.
The closest stops are Trinité and Saint-Georges on métro line 12, both a 5-minute walk. Pigalle (lines 2 and 12) is a 10-minute walk downhill. Buses 21, 26, 40, 43, 68, and 74 all pass close by.
A note on access: the museum has three staircases and no lift, so it isn't suitable for wheelchair users, and prams have to be left at reception. No luggage of any kind is allowed inside, and the lockers don't take bags either — leave the suitcase at your hotel.
What to see inside
Moreau left around 25,000 works here, and the hang is unlike any other museum in Paris. Paintings cover the walls top to bottom; cabinets of watercolours and drawings swing out like pages in a book. This is a working studio preserved, not a gallery curated for comfort.
The studios (2nd and 3rd floors). The two huge rooms are the heart of the museum and the only spaces you're sure to see. The wrought-iron spiral staircase Moreau added between them — so the two floors would read as a single soaring space — is the image most visitors come away with. It's worth climbing slowly.
Jupiter and Semele. Moreau's late masterpiece, dense with detail and gold, dominates one studio wall. Up close it dissolves into thousands of tiny jewelled marks. This is the painting most people make the trip for.
The Apparition. His vision of Salomé confronting the floating, haloed head of John the Baptist — one of the works that made Moreau the painter the Symbolists and Surrealists claimed as their own.
The apartment (1st floor). When it's open, Moreau's preserved living rooms show the man behind the myth: family portraits, his collection, the domestic life he folded into the same building as his work. Catch it early in the day.
A house built to be a museum
What makes the Moreau strange is the intent. Most house-museums are an artist's home turned into a museum after the fact. Moreau did it on purpose, while alive. From 1895 he reworked the building specifically so it could hold and show his life's output, then willed the whole thing to the state.
That's why it feels less like a collection and more like a personality. Nothing has been thinned out or rehung for modern taste. You're seeing the choices of a 19th-century painter who wanted to be remembered exactly this way — which, more than a century on, is its own kind of rare.
It pairs naturally with the nearby Musée de la Vie Romantique and the Pigalle backstreets, or with the Marmottan across town if you're building a day around the smaller, stranger Paris museums most first-timers skip.
Frequently asked questions
How much are Gustave Moreau Museum tickets in 2026?
€8 full price, €6 reduced. Under 18s and EU residents 18–25 enter free, and admission is free for all on the first Sunday of each month (reserve a slot — they fill up). The ticket also covers the Musée Jean-Jacques Henner within 72 hours.
What are the Gustave Moreau Museum opening hours?
Daily except Tuesday, 10:00–18:00, last admission 17:30. Closed 1 January, 1 May, and 25 December. Strikes caused intermittent closures through 2025–2026, so check the homepage or call before a special trip.
Is the Gustave Moreau Museum worth visiting?
Yes, if you want a Paris museum that feels like no other. The two double-height studios, the spiral staircase, and 25,000 works hung floor to ceiling make it one of the city's most singular spaces. It's small and rarely busy — allow about an hour.
Does the Paris Museum Pass cover the Gustave Moreau Museum?
Yes, it's included. But at €8 a ticket, the pass only pays off if you're also visiting the Louvre, the Orsay, the Pompidou, or other higher-priced pass sites in the same window.
How do you get to the Gustave Moreau Museum?
Métro Trinité or Saint-Georges (line 12), or Pigalle (lines 2 and 12), each about a 5-minute walk. The museum is at 14 rue de La Rochefoucauld in the 9th arrondissement.
Small, singular, and built by the painter himself — the Gustave Moreau Museum rewards the detour off the Pigalle tourist track. See the best art museums in Paris guide for where it fits, or the Marmottan if you're chasing the museums most visitors miss.
Last verified: May 2026