Inaugurated during the Universal Exhibition of 1900, La Gare d'Orsay became the head of the southwest line until 1939. Associated since its construction at the Hotel d'Orsay, the whole had various uses including center of Reception of prisoners at the Liberation.

In 1973, the Direction des Musées de France envisaged the installation on the site of a museum dedicated to the arts of the second half of the 19th century. The decision to build the future Musée d'Orsay was taken in 1977 and its inauguration took place in 1986.

Issued at the origin of several French museums, then of gifts and periodical acquisitions, the collections gather a vast group of works of artists of the 2nd half of the XIXème century and the beginning XXème.