Dad-Daughter European Trip: The Louvre, The World’s Most Famous Art Museum
Continuing with my series of photographs (finally!) from the most epic European dad-daughter trip of (probably?) our lifetime –
29 days from December 2023 to January 2024 via planes, trains and automobiles.
In this final post from Paris, we pop into the grand-daddy of all art museums, The Louvre Museum.
The Musée du Louvre is the world’s largest (and most famous) art museum. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, which began as a fortress built in the late 12th century under Philip II. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.
The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. The collection was increased under Napoleon, after the Napoleonic looting of art in Europe, Egypt, and Syria (1797–1815); and was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire (1852-1870) the museum gained 20,000 pieces.
Today, the Musée du Louvre contains approximately 500,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 652,000 sq ft. dedicated to the permanent collection. In 2023 it was the most-visited museum in the world, ahead of the Vatican Museums (which we’ll get to in a future post).
The Pavillon de l’Horloge (“Clock Pavilion”), is a prominent architectural structure located in the center of the western wing of the courtyard of the Louvre Palace.
Now, despite pre-purchasing our tickets online and it being early December (still low season for Paris), we still had to wait a good 40 minutes on line to get in (could only imagine what it’s like in the summer months!), so purchasing your tickets beforehand (days or even weeks!) is a must.
In the center of the grand courtyard stands the most visible product of the vast ‘Grand Louvre’ project that modernized the museum in the 1980s: the Louvre’s Pyramid, by Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei. In July 1983, Pei, who had already designed extensions for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, was appointed architect for the Grand Louvre project, which had been commissioned by French President François Mitterrand in 1981.
Pei came up with the idea of a central underground lobby affording direct access to the museum’s three wings, which would transform visitor circulation inside the Louvre. The Pyramid, standing 21 meters tall, was inaugurated on 29 March 1989 and has since become the very symbol of the Louvre.
The Winged Victory of Samothrace, one of the most famous statues at the Louvre, was discovered by French diplomat Charles Champoiseau in 1863 on the Greek island of Samothrace – located in the Aegean Sea. The statue depicts Nike, the winged goddess of victory, about to board a ship. It is a Hellenistic masterpiece from the 2nd century BC and is considered one of the world’s most celebrated sculptures.
The statue adorns the top of the Daru staircase, which was designed by French architect Hector Lefuel.
Les Salles Rouges
Les Salles Rouges (The Red Rooms), which derived their name from the color of their walls, are home to some of the largest paintings in the Louvre. The Red Rooms were part of Napoleon III’s project to expand the museum and give it splendour worthy of his imperial status; the red and gold decoration, created in 1863 by Alexandre Dominique Denuelle, contributed to that goal.
Most of the works in the Red Rooms fall into the ‘history painting’ category, traditionally regarded in France as the most prestigious. The Red Rooms have been renovated several times since the 19th century. In 1969, the famous painter Pierre Soulages contributed to the creation of the color red for their walls, drawing inspiration from the red used in paintings found at Pompeii.
“La Grande Odalisque” is an oil painting of 1814 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres depicting an odalisque, or concubine. The painting received heavy criticism when it was first shown, and is renowned for the elongated proportions and lack of anatomical realism.
Napoleon I reportedly exclaimed ‘One can walk through this painting!’ when he saw Jacques-Louis David’s depiction of his coronation ceremony, “Le Sacre de Napoléon”, completed in 1807. At six meters high and almost ten meters wide it gives the viewer a sense of actually attending the ceremony.
French artist Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Self-Portrait with her Daughter, Julie (c. 1789)
Being a woman, Le Brun did not have access to formal training but by the age of 15 she had already developed a modest clientele for her portraits. By the age of 19, her works had gained so much attention that her painting materials were seized because she’d been operating as a professional artist without guild or academy membership. She quickly joined the Académie de St Luc, at a time when very few women were admitted.
Her fame skyrocketed in the late 18th century, when she was patronised by Queen Marie-Antoinette; whom she painted some 30 portraits of. It was royal intervention that led to her admittance to the Académie Royale in 1783, having been previously rejected.
“La Mort de Sardanapale” (The Death of Sardanapalus) is an 1827 oil painting on canvas by the French artist Eugène Delacroix. It was inspired by Lord Byron’s 1821 play “Sardanapalus”, recounting the fall of the Assyrian monarchy and its supposed last king.
“L’Ame brisant les liens qui l’attachent à la terre” (The Soul Breaking the Bonds That Bind It to the Earth) by French Romantic painter Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. The painting was left incomplete upon his death in 1823.
The Grande Galerie is home to the Louvre’s collection of Italian paintings, one of the largest and most impressive of its kind. The Grande Galerie was built at the end of the 16th century to link two royal palaces: the Louvre to the elegant Tuileries palace (now gone). To create optimal conditions for admiring this extraordinary collection, the choice was made to light the space from above by means of glass ceilings that bring in daylight.
“Portrait de jeune femme” (Portrait of a Young Woman) also known as “Antea” (c. 1525) is a painting by Italian Mannerist artist Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino. The subject of the painting remains largely a mystery.
Galerie d’Apollon
King Louis XIV famously identified himself with the sun god Apollo and this splendid Galerie d’Apollon was the first tangible representation of that image. Charles Le Brun, First Painter to the king, was commissioned to design the decoration. To create this masterpiece, he summoned the greatest painters, gilders and sculptors of the day, who later worked on the Hall of Mirrors at the Château de Versailles.
However, it was not long before Louis XIV began to leave Paris and the Louvre behind in favour of Versailles, where he and his court eventually settled for good. The gallery’s decoration was not completed until two centuries later, in 1850, under the direction of architect Félix Duban.
Today, the Galerie d’Apollon is home to the French Crown Jewels as well as the magnificent hardstone vessel collection of the kings of France. These beautifully mounted treasures were carved from precious minerals (including agate, amethyst, lapis lazuli, jade and rock crystal). Louis XIV had a particular passion for hardstones, and his collection comprised some 800 pieces.
“Le Soleil, ou la Chute d’Icare” (The Sun, or the Fall of Icarus) (1819) by French history painter Merry-Joseph Blondel adorns the ceiling of the Rotunda of Apollo
“La véritable Gloire s’appuie sur la Vertu” (True Glory is based on Virtue) by French painter Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1831) adorns the ceiling of the Musée Charles X, a new museum was inaugurated in the Louvre palace on 15 December 1827.
“L’Étude et le Génie dévoilent l’antique Égypte à la Grèce” (Study and Genius reveal ancient Egypt to Greece) (1827) by Francois-Edouard Picot adorns the ceiling of the fourth room of the Charles X Museum
DID YOU KNOW? The Louvre and its contents are worth at least $45.5 billion(!) and if you were to spend just 30 seconds on each piece of art, it would take 100 days straight (no sleeping, eating, or bathroom breaks!) to see them all.
Salle des Cariatides
The name of the room derives from the four ‘caryatids’ – sculpted female figures serving as columns – that support the musicians’ gallery. These were made by the sculptor Jean Goujon in 1550. Designed as a royal ballroom, this spacious vaulted gallery marked the arrival of Renaissance architecture in Paris.
Today, the Salle des Cariatides houses masterpieces from the collection of Greek sculptures – particularly statues of gods, goddesses and mythological heroes, like “Artémis, déesse de la chasse”, (above) a marble statue of the Roman goddess Diana with a deer, which is a partially restored Roman copy (1st or 2nd century CE) of a lost Greek bronze original attributed to Leochares, c. 325 BCE.
The Sleeping Hermaphroditus, a life size ancient marble sculpture discovered in the first decades of the 17th century, depicting Hermaphroditus, a child of Aphrodite and Hermes. It’s actually a Roman copy of a bronze original by the later of the two Hellenistic sculptors named Polycles (working c. 155 BC). In 1620, Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted the strikingly realistic mattress upon which the statue now lies.
Together with the Mona Lisa and The Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo is one of the three most famous female figures in the Louvre. Her name comes from the Greek island of Melos (now called Milos), where she was found in 1820 and acquired almost immediately by the Marquis de Rivière, the French ambassador to Greece at that time. He then presented her to King Louis XVIII, who donated her to the Louvre in March 1821
The exact dating of the 6 ft 7 in sculpture is uncertain, but the modern consensus places it in the 2nd century BC, perhaps between 160 and 110 BC. A fragment of an arm, a hand holding an apple, and a left foot were also found alongside the statue. Remarkably, the sculpture has been only minimally restored: only the tip of the nose, lower lip, big toe on the right foot, and some of the drapery.
Cour Puget and Cour Marly
Bathed in natural light streaming down from the glass ceilings, the masterpieces of French sculpture feel right at home in the Cour Marly and Cour Puget. Most of these statues were made for outdoor spaces, such as the gardens of the Château de Versailles or the Tuileries.
When the architects I. M. Pei and Michel Macary began work to modernize the Musée du Louvre, the two courtyards were still open to the sky. They saw an ideal space to house sculptures that were made for gardens and public squares. A tiered layout allows works to be displayed on different levels and creates interesting vistas, while the glass ceilings ensure optimal lighting.
Salle des États (and the Mona Lisa)
I know what most of you have probably started to wonder – did these two even bother to see the world’s most famous painting – the Mona Lisa? Of course we did, I just decided to save the best(?) for last.
Mona Lisa’s famously enigmatic smile has fascinated viewers for centuries. Among her first admirers was King François I, who invited Leonardo da Vinci to France and bought the painting from him in 1518. This is how the world’s most famous painting entered the royal collections that have been shown at the Louvre since the French Revolution.
The painting shows Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Painted against a distant landscape, she stares out at us with her famously enigmatic smile. Da Vinci’s use of sfumato, a technique that creates a “smoky” effect with subtle contours and contrasts, brings the painting to life.
Since 2005, the Mona Lisa has been exhibited in a protective glass case in the center of the room. This special treatment stems partly from the need to ensure the safety of such a famous work, but is also due to conservation requirements: the work was not painted on canvas, but on a panel of poplar wood which has warped over the years, causing a crack to appear. To prevent further damage, the Mona Lisa has to be kept in a temperature and humidity-controlled glass case.
The painting has been called “he Kim Kardashian of 16th-century Italian portraiture” by New York Times art critic Jason Farago, claiming the painting holds the Louvre hostage. “Some 80 percent of visitors, according to the Louvre’s research, are here for the Mona Lisa — and most of them leave unhappy. Content in the 20th century to be merely famous, she has become, in this age of mass tourism and digital narcissism, a black hole of anti-art who has turned the museum inside out.”
On some days, 25,000 people queue to catch a fleeting glimpse of it. But with viewers getting an average of 50 seconds to admire the piece (during Paris’ high season), tourists recently dubbed it “the world’s most disappointing masterpiece”. This flies in the face of the artist’s original intention, says Vincent Delieuvin, chief curator of 16th-century Italian painting at the Louvre. “Leonardo da Vinci wanted to establish a face-to-face relationship between the painting and the person contemplating it.”
We actually made the Salle des États our first stop upon entry to the museum, figuring to get the Mona Lisa out of the way right off the bat. It was a bit of a disappointment considering its size (30″ x 21″) and viewing distance (about 10 ft) but I figured I had to take a peek at what all the fuss is about. I’d strongly recommend passing on the painting during the high season – there’s so much more to see in this wondrous museum.
At the end of the day (and it was a looooong day inside the Louvre!), this historic art museum was worth all the hype. As for me and my grrrl? Très heureux.
Admission to the Louvre is a reasonable €22 and it’s open from 9:00am to 6:00pm all days except Tuesday.
All photographs taken the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, a remarkable camera phone that features a variable aperture 1-inch main camera
and Leica co-engineered Summicron lens.
