In 1897, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, son of Louis Philippe I, bequeathed the château and its collections to the Institut de France.
It included rooms remodeled as museum spaces and those left as residential quarters in the styles of the 18th and 19th centuries.
It consists predominantly of Italian and French works and includes three paintings by Fra Angelico, three by Raphael, five by Nicolas Poussin, four by Antoine Watteau and five signed by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
In addition to these, there are collections of prints, portrait miniatures, sculptures, antiques, old photographs, decorative arts, furniture and porcelain.
Also in the museum's collection is the Chantilly codex (MS 564), the primary manuscript of ars subtilior music.