Housed in the Palais Rohan, the residence of the prince-bishops built at the foot of the cathedral between 1732 and 1742 to the designs of Robert de Cotte, the king's first architect, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs comprises two distinct sections.
The first section includes the king's flat, a masterpiece of French Rococo decoration, and the flat of the cardinals of Rohan. This is an exceptional group of richly furnished state rooms. Reunited during the First Empire, these flats were refurbished for Napoleon I. Important paintings by the French School (Oudry, Desportes, de Troy, Lemoine and Restout) stand in stark contrast to the sumptuous furniture from the Louis XV, Louis XVI and Empire periods.
The second section, in the stables wing, presents the decorative arts of 18th-century Strasbourg, with the famous Hannong ceramics collection and the goldsmiths' and silversmiths' department, dominated by the famous Strasbourg vermeil. Furniture, clocks, ironwork and paintings by the Strasbourg School complete the picture of an aristocratic and bourgeois world inspired by Paris.
