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This fine display of art and furniture, once belonging to avid art collectors Edouard André and his wife Nélie Jacquemart, is housed in a beautiful late 19th-century mansion. It is best known for its Italian Renaissance art, including frescoes by Tiepolo and Paolo Uccello’s St George and the Dragon (c.1435). The reception rooms feature works from the 18th-century “Ecole française”, with paintings by François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Flemish masters are in the library.

Dina Vierny, who modelled for the artist Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) from the ages of 15 to 25, went on to set up this foundation dedicated largely to his works. Set in an 18th-century mansion, it features his sculpture, paintings, drawings, engravings and terracotta works. A wonderful collection of works by other 20th-century artists, many of whom worked in Paris, including Picasso, Matisse, Dufy, Duchamp, Kandinsky and Poliakoff, is also on show.

Paul Marmottan was an art historian and his 19th-century mansion now houses the world’s largest collection of works by Claude Monet (see Blue Waterlilies), including his Impression Soleil Levant which gave the Impressionist movement its name. The collection was donated by the artist’s son in 1971, and includes the artist’s collection of works by Renoir and Gauguin.

This impressive mansion, one of the oldest in Paris, was built by the abbots of Cluny in 1330 and now houses a magnificent collection of medieval art, from Gallo-Roman antiquity to the 15th century. It adjoins the ruins of 2nd-century Roman baths (thermes ) with their huge vaulted frigidarium (cold bath). Nearby are the 21 carved stone heads of the kings of Judea from Notre-Dame, decapitated during the Revolution. The museum’s highlight is the exquisite Lady and the Unicorn tapestry series, representing the five senses.

When the Spanish-born artist Pablo Picasso died in 1973, his family donated thousands of his works to the French state in lieu of estate taxes. Thus Paris enjoys the largest collection of Picassos in the world. Housed in the Hôtel Aubert de Fontenay, the museum displays the range of his artistic development, from his Blue and Pink Periods to Cubism, and reveals his proficiency in an astonishing range of techniques and materials.

An impressive collection of works by the sculptor and artist Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) is housed in a splendid 18th-century mansion, the Hôtel Biron, where he spent the last nine years of his life. The rooms display his works roughly chronologically, including his sketches and watercolours. Masterpieces such as The Kiss and Eve are displayed in the airy rotundas. One room is devoted to works by his talented model and muse, Camille Claudel, and Rodin’s personal collection of paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and other masters hang on the walls. The museum’s other highlight is the gardens, the third-largest private gardens in Paris, where famous works such as The Thinker and The Gates of Hell stand among the lime trees and rose bushes.

Separate pavilions in the Jardin des Plantes house exhibits on anatomy, fossils, geology, mineralogy and insects. The Grande Galerie de l’volution (see Parc de la Villette) is a magnificent collection of stuffed African mammals, a giant whale skeleton and an endangered species exhibit.

The crocodile in the Reptile House now has a better home than he once did. This creature was found in a Paris hotel room, left behind as an unwanted pet! It has yet to reach its full size of 5 m (16.5 ft).