Musée de l'Echevinage, Fine arts museum in Saintes, France

The Musée de l'Échevinage occupies the former Maison de l'Échevinage, the seat of communal power under the Ancien Régime. A monumental portal with a wrought-iron gate opens onto a paved courtyard; behind it rise the main 18th-century building and an octagonal bell-tower base topped by a dome with a lantern, completed in 1587. The galleries hold 19th-century paintings and Sèvres porcelain.

The Maison de l'Échevinage was the seat of communal power under the Old Regime. Its origins go back to the 15th century, when civil peace returned after the Hundred Years' War and Louis XI confirmed the communal charter granted in 1199 by Eleanor of Aquitaine. Only the octagonal base of the belfry survives from that first building; its upper parts were added nearly a century later, and the belfry was completed with its lantern dome in 1587. The main building was reworked in the 18th century.

The collection features works by painters from the Saintonge and Bordeaux schools, showing how local artists explored romantic and realist subjects during the 1800s. These paintings tell the story of artistic tastes that took root in this French region.

The museum sits in the pedestrian centre of Saintes, entered through the monumental portal with its wrought-iron gate off a paved courtyard. The portal, belfry, facade, roof and fountain have been listed as monuments historiques since 1939. Note that the former Musée du Présidial, the city's other fine-arts venue, has been closed to the public since October 2009, so the Échevinage holds the paintings.

The museum opened in the former Maison de l'Échevinage in 1978, taking over the 19th-century paintings from a Beaux-Arts museum founded in 1864 after a bequest by Count Louis-Nicolas Lemercier. The Présidial museum, its former counterpart, has been closed to the public since October 2009 and now serves as a conservation workshop and store for the fine arts.