The Petit Palais is reopening on 10 December 2005 following 4 years of renovation work which has restored its original luminosity and transparence. For the delight of the museum’s visitors, the building reappears in all its modernity, just as it was designed by the architect Charles Girault. Beyond the edifice’s new-found sparkle, the presentation of the museum‘s collections has also been enriched, offering greater comfort to its visitors thanks to enlarged exhibition space, improved accessibility and additional services. The Petit Palais’ main vocation is as the Musée des Beaux-Arts of the City of Paris. It is one of the rare Parisian museums to offer the public such a wide range of art work: paintings, sculpture, tapestries, objets d’art and, for the first time, icons, donated by Roger Cabal. This artistic panorama covers a vast time scale from antiquity to early 20th-century: ancient and medieval collections rub shoulders with French and Italian Renaissance works or Flemish and Dutch art, bequeathed by the Dutuit brothers. The 18th-century works of the Tuck donation and the splendid collection of French 19th-century paintings feature among the museum’s treasures, with prestigious artists such as Delacroix, Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Courbet. The richness and diversity of the collections naturally endow the Petit Palais with an educational vocation, for the discovery of and introduction to art.