Beaux-Arts de Paris

The Ecole nationale superieure des beaux-arts is the most prestigious art academy in France, set in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres district of Paris directly across the Seine from the Louvre. Descended from the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture founded under Louis XIV in 1648, it shaped French taste for three centuries and gave the world the Beaux-Arts style. On the grounds of the former convent of the Petits-Augustins, 19th-century architects built the palatial studio courts whose Cour du Murier holds antique plaster casts framed by the Palais des Etudes and the Chapelle des Louanges. The school keeps a collection of more than 450,000 works, including drawings by Michelangelo and Poussin. Visitors can see rotating exhibitions and join guided tours of the courtyards.