Oscar Wilde's Grave at Père Lachaise

Oscar Wilde is buried in division 89 of Père Lachaise, near the top of the hill, and the tomb has been behind a glass barrier since 2011. The glass is there because of kisses. From the late 1990s visitors left lipstick prints all over the stone, and the grease from the lipstick soaked into it long after the colour faded. When the tomb was restored, with money from the Irish government, the glass went up to keep it clean.

Finding the tomb

Division 89 is close to Porte Gambetta, the gate at the top of the cemetery (55-57 rue des Rondeaux, Métro Gambetta): about 185 metres in a straight line. From the main gate on Boulevard de Ménilmontant it is a climb of roughly 670 metres in a straight line, more on the winding paths. If Wilde is your first stop, come in at Gambetta and walk downhill afterwards, past Proust (division 85), Isadora Duncan and Maria Callas in the columbarium (87) and Victor Noir (92). Our famous-graves map shows them all.

You will know the tomb when you see it: a massive block carved with a winged, flying figure, by the sculptor Jacob Epstein, standing behind its glass screen.

How Wilde came to be here

Wilde died in Paris in 1900, broke and in exile after his imprisonment in England. He was first buried outside the city in a cheap grave. His friend and literary executor, Robert Ross, raised the money to move him to Père Lachaise, and the remains were transferred in 1909. Epstein’s monument followed, and Ross asked that a space be kept in it for his own ashes.

The tomb had its own troubles before the lipstick. It survived largely intact until the 1980s, except that the winged figure’s genitals were hacked off; sources disagree on when. The lipstick habit, usually traced to 1999, was harder on the stone than any vandal, because grease penetrates it and leaves a shadow that cleaning cannot fully lift.

The 2011 restoration cleaned the tomb and added the glass. Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, described the barrier at the time as “gently warding off and saying please rather than saying in a loud voice, keep out!” Some tour listings still describe a tomb “covered entirely with bright red lipstick”. That has not been true since 2011.

Visiting respectfully

The tomb is free to visit during opening hours: 8:00 to 18:00 on weekdays from 16 March to 5 November (8:30 on Saturdays and 9:00 on Sundays and holidays), and closing at 17:30 from 6 November to 15 March. Please do not climb the barrier, kiss the glass or leave lipstick on anything nearby. The cemetery’s rules also ban alcohol, picnics, music and dogs. Photographs are fine.

See Wilde's tomb on a guided walk →

Tours that include Wilde

Most do. City Wonders’ Famous Graves walk names him first, with Morrison, Piaf, Chopin and Molière (from $21.35, 4.6 from 1,374 reviews). Empire Tours’ small-group walk lists Wilde and Morrison as its headline graves (from $21.35, 4.6 from 211 reviews), and the archaeologist-historian tour adds the symbols on the 19th-century tombs around him (from $23.32, 5.0 from 59 reviews). Prices and ratings as listed in October 2026.

For the other writers in the cemetery, Proust, Balzac, Molière, La Fontaine, Apollinaire, Colette and Gertrude Stein, see the famous-graves guide.