Nancy is one of the two great centres of Art Nouveau in France (the other is Paris), and this museum, housed in a late 19th-century villa, contains the finest collection of the local school's work. Furniture by Louis Majorelle, glass by Émile Gallé and the Daum brothers, ironwork, ceramics, and stained glass fill the rooms with an intensity of applied ornament that feels both extravagant and entirely coherent.
The garden outside the villa is also worth walking — it was planted specifically to provide inspiration for the artists whose work is inside: iris, wisteria, water lilies, and the other natural forms they transformed into carved wood and blown glass. Located on the Rue du Sergent Blandan, about 15 minutes' walk south of Place Stanislas. Closed Tuesdays. This is one of the best specialist art museums in France.