Museum of Fine Arts in Tours is known not only because of its collection of paintings, including works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Degas and other masters. The museum is located in one of the most beautiful historic buildings Tour - the episcopal palace, a recognized model of classical style. In the courtyard of the building grows Lebanese cedar planted even under Napoleon, next you can see fragments of the Roman amphitheater, and in the window of the museum is a stuffed elephant, which in the XIX century was so like the residents of the Tour, they decided to just perpetuate it.

Most of the palace complex was built in the 60s of the XVIII century. The museum was opened there in 1910, and before that in the palace housed the theater, the school, then a warehouse. At the end of the XVIII century it has opened an art gallery, but has existed there for long, as the palace again became the property of the Church. The founder of the first gallery was Charles-Antoine Ruzho.

The basis of the museum's collection was a private collection, which was acquired by the municipality with the participation of the wealthy. It turned out to be the work of several monasteries - Marmoutier, La Riche, Bourgueil, as well as churches and castles. Today, the museum can see the paintings, dating from the period from the XIV to the XX century. Stored in the museum are paintings of Flemish, Italian and French schools of painting.

Particularly valuable paintings called two paintings by Mantegna, "Resurrection" and "Agony in the Garden", written in the middle of the XV century, Rembrandt painting "The Flight into Egypt" (the first half of the XVII century) and the work of Rubens' Mars, Venus koronuemy. " You can also see the sketch for a portrait of Balzac by Louis Boulanger, drawings by Ingres and the work of other artists.