Musee des Beaux-Arts de Pau. The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau is a municipal museum in the city of Pau in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Founded in 1864 on the initiative of the Société Béarnaise des Amis des Arts, it is the second most important museum in Aquitaine, after the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. Inaugurated in 1931, the museum building is the work of architect Jacques Ruillier. It is a perfect example of the 1930s style. Its Greek cross plan is inspired by Byzantine art, while the exterior facades are a reminder of ancient Greek architecture: protruding pilasters, cornices decorated with a regular ornate Doric frieze. Note on one of its sides the presence of a remarkable peristyle. The museum's collections of paintings are extremely rich, in particular thanks to the Louis La Caze bequest which, in 1872, brought into the museum 30 paintings by major painters such as Zurbaran, Bassano or Jordaens. In a more general way is Western painting which is shown from the XVI th century to the present day. The museum thus presents works of the great European schools of painting: the Italian school - with Andrea Solario, Pietro della Vecchia, Simone Cantarini, Giulio Carpioni, Carlo Maratta, Luca Giordano with a Philosopher from the famous series of portraits he painted on this subject, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Francesco Trevisani or Gaspare Traversi ; the Spanish school with great names such as Jose de Ribera and his Saint-Jérôme, El Greco with a Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, Francisco de Zurbaran but also painters like Alonso Cano and Juan Carreño de Miranda. Flemish schools and Dutch from the XVII th century are represented by painters such as Jan Lievens, Nicolas Berchem, Bartholomeus van der Heist, Jan van Huysum, Jan Miel, Pieter Neefs, Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, David Teniers the Younger,Jan Brueghel the Elder and Frans II Francken. The French school, including the XVIII th century figure with works by François de Troy, Nicolas de Largillière, Natoire, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Jean-Marc Nattier, Carle Van Loo and Hubert Robert. The XIX th century, mostly French, is represented in both its academic and innovative currents with painters like François Marius Granet, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Eugène Isabey, Eugene Deveria, Camille Corot, Edgar Degas and his famous Cotton Office in New Orleans, Eugène Boudin, Albert Lebourg, Henri Fantin-Latour, Eugène Carrière, Berthe Morisot and Edouard Vuillard. For the XX th century we find painters like Kees van Dongen, Andre Lhot, Lucien Simon, Albert Marquet and Rodolphe Caillaux and sculptures of Rodin or Alfred Boucher as Rest. Finally, contemporary painting since 1960 is widely represented.