The Louvre- Round One

Today I went to visit the Louvre, which so large it’s really a complex of many museums that happen to be in the same area. It was originally a palace that has gradually been added to over centuries. In its current configuration the museum’s exterior is a mix of old and new. See for yourself in the courtyard...

 

 

 

I’m actually going back on Wednesday to see the things I didn’t have time for (my brain basically shut down at one point from art and antiquities overload) and to see the Costume Museum in the complex, which is closed on Mondays. There were two main areas I wanted to see today. One is the Greek and Roman galleries, which contains a lot of sculpture...

and it also had an insane amount of tour groups which kind of made me freak out due to lack of personal space... the visitors in those groups who liked to have their photos taken while *touching* the sculptures did not help. I had to keep reminding myself that I was on vacation and not at work, so I didn’t end up yelling at a complete stranger (although my fellow conservators would understand- when you are trained to above all else protect old objects in museums that instinct is hard to turn off).

Anyway, my favourite sculpture was this one, an Aphrodite from 440-400 BC...

The second area I wanted to visit was the Ancient Egyptian galleries, which did not disappoint. While it was all lovely, there was one piece in particular I was looking for....

 

This, tucked off in the corner, is the Zodiac Ceiling, originally from a temple in the complex of buildings in Dendera. It is a map showing ancient astronomy and is an incredibly rare because of its subject matter...

You would never know it from the signage around the piece, but this is one of the objects that the antiquities department in Egypt has demanded be returned to the country. It was originally removed from the temple (which still stands) during the Napoleonic ‘expeditions’ using the methods of early 19^th century archeology (being brute force and dynamite). It’s in remarkable shape given its history and in its very sturdy frame, does not look like it would be easy to return to Egypt even as a loan...

In the afternoon I went to the decorative arts wing. In the same room as Napoleon’s throne is this vase...

 

It’s an example of Orientalism, which is a general style to describe European interpretation of non-western art. This piece dates from 1804-1806 and is a good example of how the spoils of Napoleon’s military conquests inspired pretty trinkets for the ultra-rich to decorate their palaces. However, this is before Europeans understood how to read hieroglyphics, so all the writing on it is stylized and weirdly looks more like Arabic than anything else.

So in short, the Louvre is a museum that bigger then you can ever imagine and filled with more objects then is possible to see in one day. Looking forward to round two.