GrandPalaisRmnPhoto Official Photo Agency of France's National Museums

History and Founding

GrandPalaisRmnPhoto (formerly the photographic agency of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais, or RMN-GP) was founded in 1946 as the official photographic service for France's national museums. It operates as a public industrial and commercial institution under the authority of the French Ministry of Culture. Since its founding, the agency's photographers have conducted systematic photography campaigns inside French national museums, building an authoritative visual record of the national collections. In 2024, the agency was rebranded as GrandPalaisRmnPhoto.

Collections and Holdings

The agency manages a catalogue of approximately 1.8 million images of artworks held in France's national and regional museums, including the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, the Palace of Versailles, Centre Pompidou, Musée Guimet, Musée de l'Armée, and Musée Picasso. Each year, the agency captures more than 20,000 new on-site photographs to expand the collection. In addition to French holdings, the agency distributes images from partner institutions including the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo del Prado, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (BPK collection), numerous Italian museums, the Alinari photographic collection, and the National Palace Museum of Taiwan. The entire publicly searchable catalogue is available free of charge at photo.grandpalaisrmn.fr.

Notable Materials

The collection encompasses all major periods and genres of Western and non-Western art history, providing iconographic resources for publishing, research, journalism, and education. Since 2015, the agency has also participated in the France Collections 3D project, conducting 3D scanning and digitization of emblematic museum objects. The online portal provides comprehensive access to images along with scholarly notes on each work.

Access and Usage

The website photo.grandpalaisrmn.fr is available in French and English and provides free access to images and catalogue records for personal and research use. Commercial licensing for reproduction in books, exhibitions, and media is available directly through the agency.