The Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne, France, is set to reopen on November 26 after an extensive 14-year expansion and renovation project. Art critic Pierre Rosenberg has described the museum as housing the most beautiful collection between Paris and Madrid. The museum initially closed its doors in 2011 when the building no longer met current safety and accessibility regulations.

The renovation project was undertaken by French architectural firm BLP, which was tasked with modernizing the facility while bringing natural light back into the original three-story building. The historic structure was designed in an eclectic style by architect Charles Planckaert. "The idea was to open it to the city and make it more accessible to the public," explains Hélène Ferron, the museum's head of collections. The restoration work included renovating the central patio's glass roof and uncovering a mosaic by Giandomenico Facchina that had been hidden behind layers of plaster for years.

"Emotion is key to our museum experience, we want it to feel welcoming, not intimidating," Ferron emphasizes. This philosophy is reflected throughout the museum's new design approach. BLP Architects also converted an adjacent school building, which the city relocated in 2018, into a modern extension of the museum. Behind the preserved historic façade, the new space now houses a café, shop, storage areas, a restoration studio, offices, several exhibition rooms, a research center, and a dedicated study room for drawings.

The renovation has dramatically expanded the museum's capacity, with the display area doubling in size to 3,000 square meters. The visitor experience begins on the ground and first floors of the historical building, with the grand staircase now leading to an intermediary level featuring three galleries in the extension. One notable feature is a two-story loft where paintings are hung tightly from floor to ceiling, reminiscent of the traditional Paris Salon style. The mezzanine level provides access to the second floor of the original building, where works by Bayonne artists Léon Bonnat (1833-1922), Antonin Personnaz (1854-1936), and Paul Helleu (1859-1927) are prominently displayed.

A unique design element throughout the museum is the inclusion of "art-free rooms" - spaces of contemplation on each floor where visitors can pause and reflect on what they have experienced. The museum's new thematic sections focus on topics such as the representation of the human body and the meaning of collecting, all presented with accessible wall texts designed to engage rather than intimidate visitors.

The ambitious renovation project carried a budget of 29 million euros, with 14 million funded by the city of Bayonne and the remainder supported by private patrons, regional authorities, departmental funding, and the French state. An additional 4 million euros was invested in restoring 1,300 individual artworks. The restoration process has yielded remarkable results and discoveries, including Jean-Dominique Ingres' "La Baigneuse," which has regained its original brilliance. Conservators also made significant findings, including previously unknown autographs in El Greco paintings and the discovery of pentimenti and overpaintings in Simon Vouet's "Roman Charity" from the 1620s.

Founded in 1891, the Musée Bonnat-Helleu derives its name from two painters whose generous bequests between 1922 and 2011 established a tradition of philanthropy that continues today. This tradition was further enriched by the collections of Antonin Personnaz in 1936 and Jacques Petithory in 1992. The museum now houses an impressive collection of approximately 7,000 works spanning from antiquity to the 20th century. Significantly, around 2,500 works are on long-term loan from the Musée du Louvre, including the remarkable 1st-2nd-century Hermaphrodite sculpture that is typically displayed in the Grande Galerie in Paris.

The museum's graphic arts collection stands among the finest in the world, featuring more than 3,500 works on paper by master artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Ingres, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, and Paolo Veronese. A carefully curated selection of 50 works will be on display and rotated quarterly to preserve these delicate pieces. Among the recent acquisitions is the missing portion of a three-piece portrait of a warrior by Théodore Géricault, acquired in 2023.

The museum maintains strong ties to its local community and the city of Bayonne, which fostered a new generation of artists in the late 19th century, many of whom were trained by Bonnat himself. Among these local artists was Marie Garay, whose portrait of Bonnat will be prominently displayed on the ground floor. "Female artists are among our priorities for future acquisitions," Ferron notes, reflecting the museum's commitment to expanding representation in its collection. The reopening marks not just the restoration of a historic institution, but the creation of a more inclusive and accessible cultural space for both local residents and international visitors.