This exhibition includes a hundred paintings along with an extension of freshly-hung works from the same period in the Fine Arts Museum in the Louis XII wing. The exhibition is accompanied with an exhaustive and richly illustrated catalog of the collection of 16th to 18th century paintings belonging to the Royal Château de Blois. A dozen recently restored paintings are presented for the first time.

Around the main core of French paintings, the principal foreign schools of 17th century painting are also represented : Italy, Flanders, Holland, and Germany. The names of great French painters such Jacques Stella, Claude Vignon, Philippe de Champaigne, Sébastien Bourdon, Michel Corneille, and Jean Nocret, are confronted with those of lesser-known artists who are rarely found in the national collections and so merit to be discovered : Jean and Pierre Mosnier, Frère Luc, Jean Dieu de Saint Jean, Johann Karl Loth, or Antonio Zanchi.

The exhibition aims at establishing the importance of this collection within the national heritage, allowing art lovers, researchers, curators and the public to appreciate the richness of the collections of Blois.