The national Picasso collection, housed in the Hôtel Salé — a grand seventeenth-century Marais mansion built on the proceeds of the salt tax, which is where the nickname comes from. It holds the works Picasso kept for himself, which makes it a different kind of collection from any other.
The Hôtel Salé was built in the Marais in the 1650s for a man who had grown rich collecting the gabelle, the salt tax — hence the nickname, the "salted mansion", which has outlasted every official name it has had.
It became the national Picasso museum in 1985, and the reason it is worth a visit is what is in it rather than the building. Much of the collection came to the French state in lieu of inheritance tax after Pablo Picasso's death in 1973, and again after Jacqueline Picasso's in 1986.
That origin makes it unlike other museums. Most collections are assembled from what an artist sold. This one is largely made of what Picasso did not sell — the works he kept in his own houses, across seventy years and every change of manner, plus his personal collection of other people's art: Cézanne, Matisse, Rousseau, Degas, Braque.
So the museum is closer to the contents of a working life than to a curated survey, and it is the right place to end a Picasso walk that starts at the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre and passes 7 rue des Grands-Augustins, where Guernica was painted. Both of those are closed to visitors. This is the one you can go into.
Guernica itself is not here. It is at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, in accordance with Picasso's wish that it go to Spain.
The Hôtel Salé is built in the Marais for a collector of the salt tax.
Picasso dies; much of his retained work passes to the French state in lieu of inheritance tax.
The Musée Picasso opens in the Hôtel Salé.
Jacqueline Picasso dies; a further settlement adds to the collection.
Largely the work Picasso kept for himself, across seventy years and every change of style, together with his personal collection of other artists — Cézanne, Matisse, Rousseau, Degas, Braque. The holdings came to the French state mainly in lieu of inheritance tax after his death in 1973 and Jacqueline Picasso's in 1986.
No. Guernica is at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, in accordance with Picasso's wish that it go to Spain. It was painted in Paris, at 7 rue des Grands-Augustins, in the spring of 1937 — but the painting is not in the city.
The "salted mansion" — its builder in the 1650s had made his money collecting the gabelle, the salt tax. The nickname has outlasted every formal name the building has carried since.
At the end. The Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, where he painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and 7 rue des Grands-Augustins, where he painted Guernica, are both closed to visitors. This is the one you can go inside.
The national Picasso collection opened in the Hôtel Salé in 1985, formed largely from work that came to the French state in lieu of inheritance tax after Picasso's death in 1973 and Jacqueline Picasso's in 1986 — that is, mostly what he chose not to sell.
The old aristocratic quarter on the Right Bank that became the centre of gay Paris in the 1990s, at the end of a migration that started in Saint-Germain.
Visit the placeThe municipal pawnbroker of Paris, founded in 1777 and still trading from the same address in the Marais. Parisians called it ma tante — my aunt — and it is where George Orwell left his clothes for the money to eat during the poverty of Down and Out in Paris and London.
Visit the place
The inside-out building of 1977 that houses the Musée national d'art moderne, closed for a five-year renovation since September 2025.
Visit the place
The Chinoiserie music hall on boulevard Voltaire where Colette performed mimodramas in 1911 and 1912, toward the end of her stage career.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
