The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine.  The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography.  It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe. Musée d'Orsay had 3.177 million visitors in 2017. 

The museum building started as a railway station.  It was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939.  After 1939 it was used for suburban services and part of it became a mailing center during World War II.  The suggestion to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museums of France. The idea was to build a museum that would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at the Georges Pompidou Centre.  Finally in July 1986, the museum was ready to receive its exhibits. It took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works. The museum officially opened in December 1986 by then-president François Mitterrand.