Nuit des Musées 2025 offers you the opportunity to (re)discover the Maurice Denis departmental museum, housed in a former royal hospital, on Saturday, May 17, 2025. The historic building, encircled by a garden displaying master statues, is also full of surprises, including a chapel that is resolutely modern for its time.
Avis aux amateurs de culture ... You're invited to the new edition of Nuit des Musées, the famous free nocturnal event inviting you to contemplate, discover and marvel, on Saturday, May 17, 2025 in Paris and the Île-de-France region! An exceptional evening in which museums light up in the dark, transforming themselves into living scenes, where art and history come alive in a new light.
Visitors let themselves be carried away by the sounds and sights, and lose themselves in the rooms, marvelling at the treasures they contain. During the Nuit des Musées, artists and the public rub shoulders, and performances and animations follow one another, drawing spectators into an inspiring creative whirlwind.
The Musée Départemental Maurice Denis in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines, tops the list of nuggets to (re)discover during Nuit des Musées 2025. The institution is housed in a historic building, once a royal general hospital founded by Madame de Montespan. Maurice Denis, the famous painter and theorist, bought the property in 1914 and restored it as his home, which he named "Le Prieuré". The artist also restored the disused chapel of the former hospital, which has become a characteristic and complete religious ensemble of his work.
The museum is dedicated to Symbolist, Nabis, Post-Impressionist and Pont-Aven painters. The highlight? The property's garden, laid out by Maurice Denis himself, is a peaceful, harmonious place, graced by sculptures byAntoine Bourdelle and several landscapes to discover as you stroll along.
The Nuit des Musées 2025 program at the Maurice Denis departmental museum
On Saturday May 17, to mark European Museum Night, the Musée départemental will open its doors free of charge from 7pm to 10.30pm. In addition to access to the exhibition halls, you'll be able to enjoy a wide range of shows and activities.
- Guided tours
Without registration, departures at 7:15, 8:15 and 9:15pm
Estimated duration: 45 min.
- Lyrical singing
Vocal works accompanied on piano by the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Départemental Claude-Debussy's lyrical singing class.
3 different performances at 8pm, 8:30pm and 9pm.
Dive into night, mystery and melancholy through Symbolist poetry set to song at the end of the 19th century. Discover verses by Charles Nuitter, Romain Bussine, Théodore de Banville, Hahn, Eugène Adenis-Colombeau and Georges Audigier, set to melodies by Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré.
- Creative workshops
As part of the Street-Art Week organized by the town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the museum's mediators and visual artists invite you to take part in the creation of frescoes and large-scale works.
- Participatory frescoes
9pm, estimated duration 1h, no registration required
Set up among the works of art, you can take part in the creation of a participatory fresco using collage and oil pastel, inspired by the works of Paul-Élie Ranson and Paul Sérusier.
- Grands Formats
Sessions at 7pm and 8pm, estimated duration 50 minutes, possibility of joining the activity during the workshop
Halfway between comic strips and fresco work, participants will create huge comic trips in a large participatory book (collage and drawing games).
- Theater in the garden
Performance of Roland Dubillard's play "Madame fait ce qu'elle dit" by Compagnie Tangente in the Museum garden
9:30pm - estimated duration: 1h.
At the base or top of a tree, the embodiment of life as it goes by, Madame sometimes thinks she's the black widow, sometimes Phèdre and all her fury. This old actress writes her life, her "ship" as she likes to say. Existence is a great theater, and for her, beyond the stage, everything is imaginary. Between anguish, self-mockery, impulses and melancholy, Madame must express herself. Under the watchful eye of her young dancer and indispensable musician, the most incongruous experiments are played out. Intruders want to take over Madame's secret garden, but Madame knows how to conceal herself.
This multi-voiced monologue, a testamentary work by Roland Dubillard, is perhaps a confession of existential impotence.
Le programme est mis à jour en fonction des annonces officielles.
