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.