Louvre, 2: Seriously

 A few more serious pix, some favorites, from the Louvre...

David's Leonidas at Thermopylae; always wanted something 
like this for my office at SMU

Ingres' Deification of Homer

David Selfie

Obligatory winged favorite

Never miss a Martini (Simone), Bearing the Cross,
1335

Lorenzetti, Casting Out of the Rebellious Angels,
1440 (another personal favorite)

Beautiful Bernardino da Parenzo, Adoration of the Magi, 1475

Detail of the extraordinary 1475 landscape

Love the Luinis (Mr. Smokie's under-study)

Pretty much my favorite art history lesson in the Louvre, 
Titian's Pastoral Concert, 1509 (compare Manet...); now so
glassed and darkened and poorly placed you can barely make
it out

Veronese' hilarious (to me) Emmaus; the incident at Emmaus was
supposed (according to the Gospel of Luke) to consist just of Jesus,
his disciple Cleopas (Cleopas?!), and another, unnamed "disciple";
Veronese apparently got paid by the number of figures on the canvas 

Wanted to make sure they spelled his name right on the check

Love the Arcimboldos; this, one of the Four Seasons (two were
on loan to, oddly, the Pompidou), mid-1500s

In one of the nicer bits of the Louvre

Fit for a king

Ribera's Clubfooted Boy...a great turning point in
painting...someone who was not a king or a god
or a saint

Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin, 1605

Moving right on, now in Greek sculpture, Cycladean figures,
Bronze age

Over-size Pallas Athena

Now in the Salle des Caryatids, where Moliere

entertained Louis XIV

Another incredible place...

Louvre Loonies

October 2nd was our second visit to the Louvre on this campaign, covering far more ground than the previous visit. But five hours in the great museum takes its toll, and some of us begin to feel a bit giddy.

Largest Della Robbia we've yet seen: a Lift-off 
(you can see J's feet disappearing into the clouds 
at the top)

Why there are so many Della Robbias: the entire clan was doing
them

Batter up! Not the only thing that was up

Apollo has downloaded the Louvre map to his phone in order
to find his gallery (Gallery of Apollo)

Extreme Medici nose

"Don't make my butt too big" #1,632

Extreme Christian piercing

Saintly fly-by

Holy tea towel

Same model as you know who

Jesus calculating how much water it will take to convert enough
wine for a Veronese Cana wedding canvas...let's see, 4 cups per
wineskin, 2 cups per person...water it down a bit...

Today's mob to see Mr. Smokey's Special Lady Friend

Cat doing what cats do

Why do circumcisions always draw such a crowd?

"Such a big knife?"

Louvre graffiti

Still has her 8th grade paper on A Farewell to Arms

Back-scratcher handle broke off

Tennis racket handle broke off

Did not break off

Marche D'Aligre And Rue De Nice

On another day off, we visited the Marche d'Aligre, over near our old neighborhood in the 11th, and even stopped by to see our old haunts.

Marche d'Algre is really three or four markets in one: a street of

fruits and veggies, a square with clothes, brocante, and books, and 

a covered market of meat and seafood and specialty items; the

neighborhood abounds in other food stores, bakeries, cafes, and so on

Helpful map of the Marche Beauvau, the covered
market

Pheasant

Lotte, aka monkfish, aka poor man's lobster; the fish I use in
bouillabaisse; texture and taste close to lobster; unusual in the
USA

More giant shrimp

Specialty beer shop; no Westvleteren; not that it was expected

Specialty tripe shop

Have to like this neighborhood

Wood-working, refinishing shop

Belle Epoque fixer-upper

Rue Charonne "open book" I thought of as a landmark

Our old building on Rue de Nice; nothing special, but home for
three months

Entry, we think

Nothing in the entire neighborhood seems to have changed at all
in the seven years since we lived there