Last Of The Louvre For 2026

Just a few more pix, hopefully not previously posted here before...

After a couple rooms of Corots, we decided we need to learn and see
more...next time

Finally, northern lights! Francois Biard, Magdalena Bay (near
Spitzbergen), 1840

David, Antoine and Angelique Mongez, 1812; note that Madame Mongez
is smiling, possibly because her husband is finance minister, and maybe
because word has not yet come back from Russia about Napoleon's
misadventure there...

Also because after this woman, Elizabeth-Louise Vigee
Le Brun (self-portrait with her daughter), portraits smiled;
and even David caught on...

Vigee LeBrun's portrait of Joseph Vernet, a late 18th century
landscape painter of note and great interest to me; looking pleasant,
not smiling, however

Speaking of portraits, this is one of our 2 or 3 favorites, Van Eyck's
Virgin of Chancellor Rollin; subject of previous bloposts here;
something I cannot resist re-posting; 1435 (!)

Clouet's famous portrait of Francois Premier, 1527; who
was famous for many good reasons, not least of which was
bringing Mr. Smoky's Special Lady Friend to the Louvre

Holbein's Anne of Cleves; designated survivor, Vicki observes;
recently restored

The Louvre now has a room or two of works the Germans
"acquired" 1940-45. mostly from Jewish families later
murdered, but whose rightful owners have never yet been
identified

One instance of which, Jacques-Augustin Pajou,
The Two Duval Mademoiselles, 1828

Finally, pretty much out of any order I can understand in the
Italian section, three Luini frescoes, a Magi, an Adoration,
and a Blessing, all 1520s

Luini was a student and assistant to Leonardo

Luini's oil paintings were occasionally misidentified as
Leonardo's in bygone centuries; I have conspiracy theories

Finally finally, as long as we're on this particular corridor, which is the
main approach to Mr. Smoky's Special Lady Friend, we note how painful
it is to see so many busloads of tourists walking past items like the large
Botticelli fresco above, not so much as glancing at all the Giottos,
Cimabuies, Fra Angelicas, Ucellos, et al.; we can't wait for the renovation
that will move the world's most visited (and over-rated) work of art to its
own special place, with its own special additional charge; some of the
proceeds should go to a shrine for Francois Premier...oh, and perhaps this
is the place to plug my newest article in Artifices, "The Best Rooms for
Napping in the Louvre"

Napoleon III Apartments

Despite the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War, we owe much of Paris, and of France, to Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon I. #III, who had been elected President in 1848 or so, appointed himself Emperor a few years later, and then presided over the industrial revolution in France, had genuine concern for the masses, and made some great appoinments, mainly Baron Haussmann to rebuild Paris. Anyhow, in the 1860's this part of the Louvre was the State Department, so to speak, and what are called the Napoleon III Apartments are really the halls of state for reception, socializing, dining, and dealing. They are very nearly as they were in the reign of III and are as sumptuous and over the top as anything you'd see at Versailles, Garnier, or the Hotel de la Marine.

Love the menage a trois couch in the foreground

Musicians' balcony

Empress Eugenie

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte III

Nice view

Louvre Loonies

Our Friends of the Louvre passes expired May 8th, so in the the days leading thereto, we visited the great museum several more times, seeing old friends, learning a few new things, and generally enjoying the freedom to come and go and enjoy without much waiting or hassle. As always, there was amusement, documented here. 

Crowds were about as big as we've ever seen; as they say, there is no
shoulder season anymore...

Disruptions, closures, etc., reminded us of COVID times...you never
knew in advance, they never knew ever, what rooms/divisions/wings
were going to be open or closed; the Louvre's extensive website includes
information on closures...not entirely reliable, we found; oh well, 
there's always plenty to see

"Open a little wider, please"

Vasari's Annunciation

Note Mary's gnarly toes

Il Francia's, Christ on the Cross with the Virgin Mary, St. John,
and St. Job [lounging indecently] at the Foot of the Cross, 1514;
St. Job? you ask...yes, he's an eastern church saint, a 17th
century Ukrainian, known more widely as St. Job of Pochayev;
you heard it first here

A couple huge reliefs we've walked by dozens of times...
"gotta get this speck of sand out of my eye"

Inspiration for Grapes of Wrath

Hoogstraten, The Slippers, 1652, possible doctoral 
dissertation topic: why are the two slippers, in this
allegory of Dutch household maintenance, of such 
different sizes? Explain with reference to Leibniz'
monads...[click to enlarge]

In the Sully (or possibly Denon or Richelieu) wing, 1st floor...I post
this photograph merely as a teaser for my forthcoming article
(https://artificialartifices.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-best-rooms-for-napping-in-louvre.html)
on the best places to nap in the Louvre)

Muse of the Chuckwagon..."Come and get it!"

"Our heavenly father, we beseech thee to make this bacon double
cheeseburger feed thirteen, wait, no, twelve people...and maybe some
fries...with ketchup"

What goes on behind the construction curtain

Posted very inconspicuously...never seen it before

Millet, Le Precaution Maternelle, 1855...still processing

 

So among our discoveries were a couple of rooms of scores of
Corot paintings--donations from a major collector--which should be
in the Orsay, but, hey, there was no Orsay then; Corot was a contemporary
of Courbet, a pre-Impressionist, sort of, very prolific, very influential; 
anyhow, this is Corot's decoration for a bathroom, toilette, for his friend
and patron Robert-Parfait Hubert

Fuller left-side view

A droite, as they say; I'm changing my name to Mark-Parfait Sherouse

Charles X awarding prizes for the 1824 Salon: "And Star Painter
for 1824 is.....................................................................................
a three-way tie between John Constable, Eugene Delacroix, and
Jean-August-Dominique Ingres"

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, In Your Dreams, 1830

Reading Room

Initially, we thought this might be Watching the Fireworks
from Fort Wilderness; but decided maybe not...

Jesus suffering the little ones...

Cranach, The Three Graces Stretching Before a Pose, 1531 

Naenius, The Artist Painting, with his Family, 1629; "don't make my 
nose too big"

Can't tell the players without a program

Lodewijk de Deyster, Angels and Allegorical Figures of the
Arts and Sciences Presenting the Thesis of Johannes de Vos,
a Resident of Bruges, 1695; how could the examination
committee turn it down?

"Hey, thanks for the stogie, but how about a light?!"