Art & Treasures Inside Notre-Dame
Beyond its architecture, Notre-Dame holds a remarkable collection of art, relics and instruments — some medieval, some added during the 2024 restoration. These are the objects that give the cathedral its life as a place of worship, not just a monument.
The Crown of Thorns
The cathedral's most venerated relic is the Crown of Thorns, believed by the faithful to be the crown placed on Christ at the Crucifixion. It was acquired by King Louis IX in the 13th century — the reason he built Sainte-Chapelle nearby to house it — and later entrusted to Notre-Dame. Famously rescued from the 2019 fire, it is kept in the Treasury and, following the restoration, presented in a new contemporary reliquary. It is traditionally brought out for veneration on certain Fridays through the year.
The great organ
Notre-Dame's grand organ is one of the largest and most celebrated in France. Rebuilt in the 19th century by the master organ-builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and expanded since, it commands roughly 8,000 pipes across five keyboards. It survived the 2019 fire largely intact but was choked with lead dust; a painstaking cleaning and re-voicing returned it to full voice for the December 2024 reopening.
The great bells
High in the south tower hangs Emmanuel, the great bourdon bell cast in 1685 and weighing over 13 tonnes — its deep note has marked coronations, liberations and mournings across French history. For the cathedral's 850th anniversary in 2013 a new set of bells was cast to join it, restoring the towers' full peal to something close to its 17th-century sound.
The Treasury
The Treasury, reached from the south side of the choir, holds sacred vessels, reliquaries, manuscripts and vestments accumulated over centuries. It is one of the few parts of the cathedral that carries a separate admission charge, and it is where the Crown of Thorns and other major relics are kept and displayed.
New furnishings for a reborn cathedral
The restoration was also a chance to commission new liturgical furniture — the altar, ambo, cathedra (bishop's chair), baptistery and reliquary — from contemporary designers, in bronze, working alongside the medieval fabric. Together with the newly cleaned stone and the returning artworks, they mark this chapter of Notre-Dame's life as both a restoration of the old and a genuine addition to it.
The paintings
Among the interior's older treasures are the “Mays” — large devotional paintings once presented to the cathedral each May by the goldsmiths' guild in the 17th century — several of which hang in the side chapels, cleaned and rehung as part of the works.
The Virgin of Paris
Against the southeast pillar of the crossing stands the statue known as Notre-Dame de Paris — the “Virgin of Paris,” a 14th-century image of the Virgin and Child that gives the cathedral its name in stone. Brought here from a nearby chapel in the 19th century, it has become one of the interior's most beloved figures. When the vault collapsed during the 2019 fire, sending burning debris into the nave, the statue was found standing untouched amid the wreckage — an image that spread around the world and, for many, came to symbolise the cathedral's survival. It remains a focus of prayer and a fixed point in every guided visit.