The museum's paintings were collected from 1890 to 1938 by a magistrate, Maurice Magnin, and his sister, Jeanne, an art critic. What was their aim? To collect paintings by unknown yet talented painters. The collection, exhibited in an elegant 17C residence, contains some 1 500 paintings by Flemish, Italian and French artists, with a number of remarkable works by little known painters hanging next to a few old masters (Tiepolo, Géricault, etc).