 The building in which the museum is sited was built in 1309 in the Gothic style and prior to the French Revolution housed Toulouse's Augustinian convent.The convent was secularized in 1793 and first opened to the public as a museum on 27 August 1795 by decree of the French Convention, very shortly after the opening of the Louvre, making it one of the oldest museums in France after the Louvre and the Musée des Beaux Arts in Besançon.It at first housed the Muséum Provisoire du Midi de la République and the école des Beaux-Arts.