Statue of Claus Sluter.
The fine arts museum in Dijon is housed in the former palace of the Burgundian dukes. It opened to the public as early as 1787, even before the French revolution, which makes it one of the oldest museums of the country. A first surprise for me was that I found a statue of the Dutch sculptor Claus Sluter (died 1406) in the central courtyard. Sluter, who was from the city of Haarlem, has been almost forgotten in his own country, although admittedly the acquisition of a Calvary made by him by the Rijksmuseum several years ago did make the headlines. A second surprise was that, as it turned out, entrance to the museum was free. When I heard that, I kind of expected hordes of tourists, but – and that was the third surprise – it was not that bad. As the Musée des Beaux Arts has no less than fifty rooms, big crowds usually dissolve within minutes. Inside the museum we can admire art that was made from Antiquity until the present day. This post attempts to highlight a number of the top pieces, a task that is far from easy, as there is so much to see.
Fayum portraits
I was instantly struck by a series of four portraits of Roman Egyptians. These portraits were attached to the mummies of the deceased to give them a face. We usually speak of Fayum portraits, after the oasis in Egypt where many of these portraits were made and later found. However, it should be noted that the portraits in the Musée des Beaux Arts come from Antinoopolis, a city situated much further to the south. They have been in the museum since 1924 and are a legacy of the French Egyptologist Albert Gayet (1856-1916).
Boy (ca. 115) / adult man (ca. 120).
The first portrait is that of a boy in a toga praetexta from ca. 115. Next to it lies a portrait of an older Egyptian in a white toga from ca. 120. The third portrait is slightly younger: it dates from the third century. It features a bearded man who once again wears the toga praetexta. This was the toga worn by Roman boys before they came of age, but also by magistrates and some priests. A Roman boy usually became an adult between the ages of fourteen to sixteen; it was his family who determined the exact moment. A boy was then also shaven for the first time. As the man from the third portrait looks a lot older than sixteen, he is more likely to be a magistrate. In his hands he is holding a purple flower and a myrtle branch. The last portrait is the only portrait of a woman. She is in middle age, and thanks to the Greek inscription in the portrait we also happen to know her name: Claudiane. The portrait dates from ca. 150-175. There is some discussion about how realistic these funerary portraits really were. Nevertheless, they give a fair idea of the very diverse population of Roman Egypt. Moreover, they are exceptional examples of Roman portrait art. In fact, with the fall of the Roman Empire the portrait disappeared as well, only to reemerge in the Late Middle Ages.
Adult man (third century) / Claudiane (ca. 150-175).
Burgundy
The next couple of rooms are dedicated to art in medieval Europe. Here we see works by Italian masters from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, such as Taddeo Gaddi (ca. 1300-1366), Domenico di Michelino (1417-1491) and Zanobi di Machiavelli (ca. 1418-1479). In my honest opinion, none of the works are masterpieces: most of them are examples of functional religious art. The collection continues with works by the German Konrad Witz (ca. 1400-1445) and the Swiss Pierre Rup (mid-fifteenth century). I personally thought the nicest work was a painting that represents the ordination of a bishop. Although we regretfully do not know the identity of the bishop, both he himself and the other figures have been painted very realistically. The details are, moreover, splendid. Just look at the figures and patterns on the chasubles. What is certain, is that the maker of the painting came from Spain. He may have been a student of Bartolomé Bermejo (ca. 1440-1501), a Spanish painter who was heavily influenced by Flemish painting.
The art from medieval Europe warms us up for the most important rooms in the museum, which are dedicated to Burgundy in its Golden Age (1363-1477). Here the story is told of how Philip the Bold, fourth son of King John II of France, was granted the duchy of Burgundy as an apanage by his father. Through his marriage, and through wars and diplomacy, Philip expanded the Burgundian sphere of influence. This expansion was continued under his son John the Fearless and grandson Philip the Good, after which his great-grandson Charles the Bold plunged the Burgundian empire into ruin with brute wars, fatal defeats and his own death on a battlefield near Nancy. In one of the rooms there is a portrait of Philip the Good, dressed in all black, with a black hat and in his hands a parchment scroll. Hanging around his neck is the collar of the Golden Fleece, the chivalric order that Philip founded in 1430. The painting is a copy of the portrait that Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1400-1464) made of the duke around 1445. Unfortunately the original work is lost; the copy probably comes from the Van der Weyden studio. Next to the portrait of Philip hangs the portrait of his son Charles the Bold, which is also a copy. Although it mentions the year 1474, research has demonstrated that the wooden panel onto which the portrait was painted dates from the sixteenth century.
Philip the Bold was also the founder of the Carthusian monastery of Champmol, just outside Dijon, for which the foundation stone was laid in 1383. Claus Sluter sculpted the portal of the church of the monastery and was also responsible for a Calvary, which is currently known as the Well of Moses. I will dedicate a separate post to the well (in the museum we find a scale model of the work). In 1410 the tomb of Philip was installed in the church, a work by the sculptors Jean de Marville, Claus Sluter, Claus van de Werve, the painter Johan Maelwael and many assistants. Sixty years later it was followed by a second tomb, that of John the Fearless, who had been murdered in 1419. The tomb is a work by Jean de la Huerta and Antoine Le Moiturier. Both tombs can be found in the Salle des Gardes, the Hall of the Watch. As I have already dedicated two separate posts to the monuments, I will confine myself to posting a picture of the tombs below. Philip the Good, who ruled over Burgundy between 1419 and 1467, and who was also duke, count, margrave or lord of a lot of other territories, was unfortunately never given a splendid tomb. In 1467 he was buried in Bruges, the city where he had died. Although Charles the Bold had the remains of his father translated to Champmol in early 1474, he never commissioned a monument for him. If you are looking for the tomb of Charles himself, you need to visit Bruges.
Salle des Gardes, with the tombs of Philip the Bold (back) and John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria (front).
Salle des Gardes, with the tombs of Philip the Bold (back) and John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria (front).
The Musée des Beaux Arts also has two wooden altar retables which come from Champmol. They are known as the Crucifixion Retable and the Retable of Saints and Martyrs. Both retables were made by the wood carver Jacob de Baerze from Dendermonde and then polychromated and gilded by the painter Melchior Broederlam from Ypres. Broederlam moreover painted colourful Biblical scenes on the reverse side of the side panels. Both altarpieces were set up in Champmol in 1399. The central scene of the Crucifixion Retable is, of course, a Crucifixion. It is flanked by an Adoration of the Magi (left) and an Entombment (right). For the side panels Jacob de Baerze carved two times five saints, while Melchior Broederlam embellished the reverse side of these panels with the Annunciation and Visitation (left) and the Presentation in the Temple and Flight to Egypt (right). The Retable of Saints and Martyrs is a little smaller. Here we see the decapitation of Saint John the Baptist in the centre, the martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and the temptation of Saint Anthony-Abbot. The side panels once again contain deftly carved statuettes of saints, but the paintings on the reverse sides have unfortunately not been preserved.
Crucifixion Retable – Jacob de Baerze and Melchior Broederlam.
Crucifixion Retable (detail) – Jacob de Baerze and Melchior Broederlam.
Retable of Saints and Martyrs – Jacob de Baerze and Melchior Broederlam.
Miscellaneous
The museum continues with no less than three dozen rooms full of art, mostly made by European painters and sculptors. We travel from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and via the seventeenth to twentieth centuries to the present. During our tour we encounter artists of all kinds of nationalities. The museum happens to have works by Dutch painters as well, of whom I would like to mention Nicolas van Houy (ca. 1550-1611), Paulus Potter (1625-1654) and Frans Hals (1580-1666). Hals was originally from Antwerp, as was Joos de Momper (1564-1635), whose Conversion of Saint Paul deserves an honourable mention. Italian painters are also well-represented, with works by Titian (ca. 1488-1576), Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1557), Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) and Veronese (1528-1588). Remarkably, many of the Italian works come from the depot of the Louvre and have only been ceded to the Musée des Beaux Arts in 2010 after a long period of being on loan. This is also true of the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).
In the museum we may also admire a fair number of interesting sculptures. Examples are a terracotta bust of Napoleon from 1806 by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), a relief of Charity (Caritas) by Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and several sculptures by François Rude (1784-1855). Rude was a native of Dijon, and in the Musée Rude in the city plaster casts of his works have been put on display. In the Musée des Beaux Arts – which, by the way, also administers the Musée Rude – we see among other things a bronze fisherman playing with a tortoise and a statue of the young Louis XIII, King of France between 1610 and 1643. Rude was married to Sophie Frémiet (1797-1867), who was herself a successful painter. The museum has a good painting by her in which Isabella of Portugal takes centre-stage. She was the third wife of Philip the Good and the mother of Charles the Bold. In the picture we see her trying to leave hostile Bruges in a carriage, but she is stopped and molested by rebels.
I really enjoyed a painting from 1885 by Claude Monet (1840-1926). It is a view of the Porte d’Aval, a conspicuous cliff near the Norman town of Étretat. We see how the local fishing fleet leaves port, according to the caption of the painting to go and catch herring. Quite mysterious is a bust by the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). The face of the bust, cast in bronze, is based on that of Rodin’s sweetheart Camille Claudel (1864-1943). The bust is called La France, but also Saint George, Byzantine empress or Young warrior. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London also happens to have a version of the bust. The Dijon version was donated to the museum in 1976 by the art collectors Pierre and Kathleen Granvelle. We certainly liked Rodin’s work, but had by now become a bit saturated. We quickly traversed the remaining rooms and ended at the Brasserie Des Beaux-Arts, where the lunch we were served was excellent.
Updated 16 January 2026.
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