Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie

The Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie is consistently overlooked by visitors to Franche-Comté, which is a significant oversight. Founded in 1694, it is the oldest public museum in France, and its collection includes paintings by Rubens, Titian, Cranach, and a particularly strong representation of French 17th and 18th-century work. The archaeological section holds Greek, Roman, and Egyptian antiquities assembled over three centuries of collecting.

The building itself is interesting — Louis Miquel's 1960s redesign wrapped a modernist interior around the 18th-century grain market, creating a space of ramps and skylights that feels much more contemporary than most French regional museums. The ground floor Egyptian collection, which includes mummies and sarcophagi, tends to pull children through at speed, leaving the upper galleries refreshingly uncrowded.

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A story
The museum claims the title of the oldest public museum in France, founded in 1694 when Cardinal de Granvelle's collection was donated to the city. This predates the Louvre's opening to the public by nearly a century. The current building, designed by Louis Miquel in the 1960s, inserted a modernist structure into the old Corn Exchange, leaving the 18th-century arcade on the outside but opening the interior into a series of ramps and skylights.