The building itself, designed by Antoine and Olivier Félix-Faure and Groupe 66, is a fine example of architectural sobriety. On each side of a gallery, alcoves contain works from the 16 to the 19C, the rounded end of the building being devoted to modern and contemporary art.
The ancient painting section has an abundance of 17C works by French painters, including Philippe de Champaigne, Georges de la Tour and Claude Gellée (also known as Claude le Lorrain). The collection of Spanish paintings is excellent with a consistent series of canvases by the Master of Extrémadoure, Francisco de Zurbaran.
While the 19C section contains works by Ingres, Boudin, Monet, Sisley, Corot and Gauguin, it is principally devoted to paintings by Grenoble artists, the best known of these being Henri Fantin-Latour. The modern art section starts with paintings by the Fauves (Van Dongen), the Dadaist movement (Grosz, Ernst), works by Modigliani, Picasso and Léger, leading to abstract paintings by Magnelli, Klee, Miro and Kandinsky.
The contemporary section presents all the major trends in art since 1945, from Lyrical Abstraction to New Realism and Supports/Surfaces, together with Pop'Art and Minimal Art: Dubuffet, Vasarely, Brauner, Sol Le Witt, Boltanski, Tapiès, Gilbert & George.
The basement contains an extremely rich Egyptology collection. Finally, the Tour de l'Isle, the vestiges of a tower of the medieval ramparts contains over 3 000 drawings.