In the early 19th century, the site was occupied by military barracks and the Palais d'Orsay [fr], a governmental building originally built for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On the night of 23–24 May 1871, the largely empty Palais d'Orsay was burned by soldiers of the Paris Commune, along with the Tuileries Palace and several other public buildings associated with Napoleon III,[2] an event which was described by Émile Zola in his 1892 novel, La Débâcle.

A 550 V DC third rail railway line extension was constructed in a 1 km (0.62 mi) cut-and-cover tunnel along the left bank of the Seine from Austerlitz to the Quai d'Orsay.

The PO company consulted three architects — Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux — to propose plans for a building that would be sympathetic to its surroundings.

Although the Gare d'Orsay offered a convenient central location, the site was restricted and there was no possibility of lengthening the platforms to accommodate the new, longer trains.

The new link opened on 26 September 1979, and today forms part of Line C of the Parisian commuter rail system, the Réseau Express Régional (RER).

Permission was granted to construct a hotel on the site, but in 1971 Jacques Duhamel, the minister of culture under President Georges Pompidou, intervened.

[10] At the time, the French Ministry of Culture was facing problems with a lack of exhibition space, particularly in the Musée du Jeu de Paume and the Louvre.

The paintings curator of the Louvre, Michel Laclotte, proposed the creation of a new museum to display 19th century artworks from the Post-romanticism era up to Fauvism, and in particular the large collection of Impressionist art from the Jeu de Paume.

The former railway hotel now holds the paintings collection, displaying works by Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh among others.