Guided tours of the exhibition ‘The Empire of Sleep’ at the Marmottan-Monet Museum

Although sleep accounts for more than a third of our lives, no exhibition in France has focused on this physiological phenomenon or its influence on the arts. Yet, since at least ancient times, myths, legends, doctors, philosophers and artists have explored this state in which life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness merge.

To address this gap in art exhibitions, the Musée Marmottan-Monet has therefore commissioned Sylvie Carlier and Laura Bossi to curate a magnificent and erudite thematic exhibition, spread across seven galleries and encompassing almost every medium (paintings, sculptures, illuminations, models, pastels, engravings, etc.). And whilst the primary focus is on exploring the various forms of sleep in the art of the ‘long nineteenth century’—in line with the chronological framework of the museum’s collections—numerous displays allow us to trace sleep back to its origins and its corollaries (dreams, nightmares, insomnia, sleepwalking, etc.), whether in the Bible, the Renaissance, or mythology.

So there are plenty of opportunities to revisit or discover essential masterpieces by George Frederic Watts, Eugène Delacroix, Füssli, Kiki Smith, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, Odilon Redon, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Gustave Courbet, Auguste Rodin, Claude Monet, Aristide Maillol, William Blake, Giovanni Bellini, or even Jeanclos and Madeleine Dumas.

If you would like to explore this exhibition, please do not hesitate to contact me for a personalised quote. My guided tours last approximately 1½ hours and are suitable for all types of visitors (private tours, group tours, clubs, local councils, works councils, school groups, etc.). Finally, the museum is accessible to visitors with reduced mobility.