Walking down Royal Street in the French Quarter feels a bit like a fever dream of wrought iron and jazz. You’ve got the smell of pralines, the sound of a distant trumpet, and then you hit the corner of St. Peter. Most people just walk past the storefronts because, honestly, New Orleans is exhausting. But there’s one place that stops everyone cold. It’s M.S. Rau. If you’re looking for the shop on Royal Street that people whisper about in hushed, "can-you-believe-that-price" tones, this is it. It’s not just a store. It’s 40,000 square feet of "how did they even get that?"
Most "antique shops" are just places to find dusty spoons and weird dolls. This place is different. Imagine a Monet hanging next to a toilet made of solid gold, or a ring that costs more than your entire neighborhood. It’s intimidating. It’s also surprisingly welcoming, which is the weirdest part about it. You can walk in wearing a damp t-shirt from the humidity and they’ll still let you look at a $5 million painting.
The History Nobody Really Tells You
The Rau family has been on this block since 1912. Max Rau started it. Back then, it was a tiny spot, nothing like the sprawling labyrinth it is today. Now, Bill Rau runs the show. He’s the third generation. He’s the kind of guy who can look at a piece of furniture and tell you which French king’s mistress sat on it.
The shop on Royal Street survived the Great Depression, World War II, and Katrina. When the levees broke in 2005, the French Quarter stayed relatively dry compared to the rest of the city, but it was still a ghost town. While other businesses folded, Rau expanded. They bought the buildings next door. They dug deep. They became the anchor of New Orleans high-end commerce.
It’s easy to think of a place like this as a stagnant vault. It isn't. It’s a high-stakes trading floor. They aren't just waiting for a tourist to buy a souvenir; they are dealing with the world's most elite collectors. We're talking about the kind of people who buy art as an investment class, similar to gold or tech stocks.
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What’s Actually Inside (And Why It’s Crazy)
If you walk into the shop on Royal Street today, you might see a Paul Revere silver bowl. Or maybe a hidden door. Seriously, they have secret passages. They use them to move art between the different buildings they’ve stitched together over the last century.
- The Paintings: You aren't seeing prints. You’re seeing original works by Renoir, Magritte, and Norman Rockwell. It’s bizarre to see a Rockwell painting—the kind you’ve seen on every "Americana" calendar—just sitting on an easel three feet away from you. No velvet ropes. Just a very, very attentive security team.
- The Jewelry: This is where things get truly wild. They specialize in rare colored diamonds. Blue diamonds, pink diamonds, stuff that makes a standard engagement ring look like a pebble. They recently had a 10-carat Golconda diamond. If you don't know jewelry, Golconda diamonds are from an extinct mine in India. They are the purest diamonds in existence.
- The Oddities: This is my favorite part. They have a collection of "medical" antiques that look like torture devices. Or a walking stick that turns into a flute. They even have a massive 19th-century "Orchestrion" that sounds like a 20-piece band and operates on a paper roll.
Why the Shop on Royal Street Matters for SEO and History
People search for "the shop on Royal Street" because they forget the name but never forget the windows. It’s a landmark. From a business perspective, M.S. Rau is a masterclass in "destination retail." They don't need to be in New York or London. They’ve made the world come to New Orleans.
Actually, Bill Rau wrote the book on this. Literally. He wrote Nineteenth-Century European Painting: From Barbizon to Belle Époque. This isn't just salesmanship; it's scholarship. When you buy something here, you’re getting a provenance report that’s thicker than a phone book. That level of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is why they can sell a Paul de Lamerie silver piece for six figures without anyone blinking.
Misconceptions About Shopping There
You don't have to be a billionaire to go in.
That's the biggest myth.
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While the $10 million items get the headlines, they have a "back gallery" and various floors with items in the low thousands. Still expensive? Yeah. But it’s not all out of reach. They want people to appreciate the history. They view themselves as curators of a private museum where everything just happens to have a price tag.
Another misconception: it's all "old" stuff. They actually lean heavily into 20th-century modernism and even some contemporary pieces if the quality is high enough. The "shop on Royal Street" brand is about excellence, not just age. If it was made yesterday but it’s the best version of that thing in the world, they’ll stock it.
The Strategy of the Secret Room
There is a literal secret door behind a bookshelf. I'm not making that up.
It leads to the "high security" wing.
This is where the truly sensitive items live. The Napoleon-era jewelry. The items that require specialized climate control and seismic sensors.
Why have a secret room? It's not just for drama. It's for the privacy of the buyers. When a celebrity or a tech mogul comes to the shop on Royal Street, they aren't browsing the sidewalk with a daiquiri in their hand. They disappear into the back. They spend hours looking at items under specialized lighting.
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How to Navigate the Experience
If you're planning to visit, don't rush it. You need at least two hours. Start on the ground floor with the jewelry to get the "shock" out of your system. Then move to the silver. The silver collection is actually one of the largest in the world—we're talking pieces by Paul Storr and Tiffany that were commissioned by royalty.
- Ask Questions: The staff there are basically walking encyclopedias. If you ask about a specific clock, they won't just tell you the price; they’ll explain the escapement mechanism and why the wood was sourced from a specific forest in 1840.
- Look Up: The ceilings in these old French Quarter buildings are works of art themselves.
- Check the Website First: Their inventory moves faster than you’d think. They have a massive digital presence because, again, their clients are global.
The shop on Royal Street is a reminder that some things are still built to last. In a world of IKEA furniture and digital art, there is something deeply grounding about touching a desk that was used during the French Revolution. It’s tactile history.
Actionable Insights for Your Visit
To get the most out of your time at M.S. Rau, keep these practical points in mind:
- Go during a weekday: The weekends on Royal Street are crowded with street performers and tourists. If you want a serious tour of the gallery, Tuesday or Wednesday morning is the sweet spot.
- Request the "Blue Room": If you are a serious collector or even a very interested student of art, ask if you can see some of the specialized galleries. They are often happy to show off their most unique pieces to people who genuinely care about the craft.
- Don't be afraid to talk budget: If you actually want to buy something, be honest. They have pieces at many price points, and they pride themselves on finding the right "fit" for a new collector.
- Document the provenance: If you buy, keep every scrap of paper. The value of items from the shop on Royal Street is tied heavily to their documented history, which the Rau family tracks meticulously.
Walking out of the shop on Royal Street and back into the humidity of New Orleans is a trip. You go from a climate-controlled 18th-century palace back to the grit of the 21st century. It’s a portal. Whether you’re buying or just "museum-ing," it’s the one place in the South where you can see the entire world in a single afternoon.