The luxurious Rümin Palace, built in the early 20th century at the expense of Gabriel Rümin, the heir of a wealthy Russian landowner who chose Switzerland as his new homeland, houses several museums. One of them is the Picture Gallery, which was founded in 1841 by the artist Marc-Luis Arlau. Its collections are based on the collection of local watercolourist Abraham-Louis-Rudolphe Ducrot. In 1808, he wanted to establish an art school with a selection of paintings by Italian painters from the 17th and 18th centuries and his own watercolours as teaching exhibits. Ducrot died and did not realise his dream. In 1816, his collection was acquired by the canton.
There are currently about 10,000 items in the vaults of the Musée des Beaux-Arts. Some of them were acquired, some were received as gifts, and the remainder are the property of various organisations and foundations that allow the museum to display them to the public. Part of the collection of the Picture Gallery of Lausanne is devoted to the art of Ancient Egypt. But most of the paintings on display here date from the 15th to 20th centuries and belong to the brushes of famous European and local painters.
Works in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Tachism, Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Realism, etc. are particularly admired. Among the most valuable exhibits are works by Marcel Brodhars, Geula Dagan, Rolf Iseli, Tadeusz Kantor, Charles Roller, Daniel Sperry and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. The Picture Gallery of Lausanne is one of the city's most interesting museums.
