The French site Louvre Pour Tous announce it this morning – after years of museum guards harassing visitors simply for taking photos, blithely ignoring the recent guidelines called “Tous photographes“, the Musée d’Orsay and the Orangerie have at last thrown in the towel and decided to allow photos to be taken inside their establishments…

As both museums are not far from our hotels, we’re delighted!

Here’s all the info.

One fine morning in 2010, without any warning or reason, the Musée d’Orsay decided that it would no longer be permitted to take photos inside the museum. The ban covered not only all the works on display, but also photos of the ceiling, the monumental clock… Quite a few people were shocked and bewildered.

The ban also applied to the Orangerie, which is under the jurisdiction of the Musée d’Orsay. Tourists were no longer able to take photos of the beautiful Monet paintings in the basement, for example.

The reason given was that people taking photos got in the way of other visitors, but this seemed disingeneous at the very least, and many suspected that the museum simply wanted to boost sales of its official postcards, rather than allow people to take free photos of their favourite paintings.

A few months ago, the government released new guidelines called ‘tous photographes‘ (“everyone’s a photographer”) which explicitly authorise the taking of photos in state-owned museums, but even that didn’t convince the Musée d’Orsay, which pretended that it was not obliged to adhere.

However, the recent opening of the Bonnard exhibition was attended by Fleur Pellerin, our minister of culture, and she gleefully took a shot for her Instagram account, no doubt assuming it was allowed. After a few snide comments on the web reminding her that the Musée d’Orsay still had its ban in place, a miracle happened less than 24 hours later – the museum announced that the ban was dead!

So now you can take as many photos as you like, as long as you respect the simple rules, don’t use a selfie stick and make sure your flash is switched off. About time…

Musée d’Orsay website: www.musee-orsay.fr

Orangerie website: www.musee-orangerie.fr