Inside Sennelier, the Most Beautiful Art Shop in Paris

Pastel paints in all colors are stacked in these small bins along one wall in Sennelier art supply store in Paris.

The most beauitful art supply store, Sennelier is tucked into a narrow storefront on the Quai Voltaire, directly across the Seine from the Louvre, it has been selling paint to the greatest artists in the world for well over a century, and it looks and feels like it.

I first visted last Decmeber, and it was so busy, I knew I had to go back. It’s a very small shop, but every surface is stacked, lined, drawered, and shelved with color, and every imaginable artist tool and supplies.

A shop with the best address in art

A look at the outside of the Parisian art store, Sennelier, from the sidewalk.

This is a worker's desk inside the Sennelier, a beautiful art supply store in Paris.

Sennelier sits at 3 Quai Voltaire in the 7th arrondissement, on the Left Bank, across from the Louvre and just steps from the École des Beaux-Arts, one of the most important art schools in the world. For more than a century, students and masters alike could walk out of a museum or a studio and be standing at Sennelier’s counter within minutes.

Leaving the Louvre, you cross to Sennelier the way artists have for generations — on foot, over the river. The Pont du Carrousel bridge takes you from the museum crowds and sets you down on the Left Bank almost exactly at the shop’s door.

The view from Sennelier

Across the street from the Parisian art store Sennelier, you can see the merchant stands that line the Seine River that separates the Left and Right Banks of Paris.

By the time you reach the far bank, you’ll see the green stalls of the bouquinistes line the quay, their boxes of old prints and used books. And there, just where the bridge meets the Quai Voltaire, is the modest storefront you came for. It would be easy to walk past it. I’m sure we did on several occasions without even noticing. Cézanne and Picasso walked this same short stretch of river, from the masterpieces on one bank to the colors that made them on the other.

The Sennelier, an art supply store in Paris, is full of art supplies for any kind of artist.

The Sennelier art supply store in Paris has all kinds of paints and every color imaginable..

Cézanne shopped here. So did Picasso.

The list of artists who bought their materials at Sennelier reads like the wall text of every major museum: Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Modigliani, and Kandinsky, all bought supplies here. The shop’s stamp can still be found on the backs of some of their canvases. More recently, David Hockney bought supplies here for his 60-canvas work “Grand Canyon” in 1998.

The same family has been running the business for four generations.

What it’s like inside

Various sizes and shapes of paint brushers are stacked in these bins inside the Sennelier art store in Paris.

Inks, pens, and all kinds of paints are stacked on these shelves above a cabinet with other art supplies.

The interior has barely changed since the 19th century, and it shows in the best way: dark wooden cabinets, brass-handled apothecary drawers, and a convex security mirror that lets you see the whole jewel-box of a room at once. There are walls of loose pastels and pigments sorted into hundreds of little wooden compartments, each a different hue, arranged like a painter’s idea of a sweet shop. Shelves of varnishes, mediums, gesso, and resins climb to the ceiling. Sennelier’s own Pastels à l’écu, the oil pastels, pigment sticks, and rolls of fine paper.

You can find almost every kind of art supply like these tubes of pastel paints in Sennelier art shop in Paris.

Inks, pens, and paints of all kind line the shelves of this display inside a section of the Sennelier art supply store.

It is cramped, a little chaotic, and utterly enchanting. I purchased three watercolor palettes for gifts. How I walked out with only three items is shocking, but it is rather overwhelming on your first visit.

Heart paper and sqaure paper at art supply store in paris.

Vintage photographs on the stairwell wall at famous art supply store in Paris.

Color chart on the stairwell wall at famous art supply store, Sennelier in Paris.

The wall of a thousand strangers

One solid wall is filled with notes and sketches from people all over the world that have visited the Sennelier Art Shop.

Climb the narrow staircase to the second floor — the domain of inks, dip pens, and handmade papers from all over the world. You’ll find my favorite corner of the whole shop. Around the top of the stairs, papering the walls and creeping across the doorways, are hundreds upon hundreds of little drawings and notes left by visitors over the years.

It began, as the best things do, by accident. A shop that sells this many pens and markers needs somewhere to test them, and those try-out scribbles never stayed mere scribbles. Test marks turned into doodles, doodles into self-portraits, self-portraits into love notes, and the swatch wall quietly became a guest book made of art. Look closely, and you’ll see quick caricatures and studied faces sitting beside hearts, cats, dates, and little greetings like “Bonjour!”, “Paris!” — scrawled in a dozen languages, and the entry is the price of a borrowed pen.

Make sure to stop by this lovely shop when you’re in Paris. It’s perfect for buying a souvenir for yourself or a friend. Even if it’s just a pen or a watercolor palette. Easy to bring home in your suitcase, and something that will actually be used! Inside Sennelier, the Most Beautiful Art Shop in Paris, you may also enjoy these posts!