Louvre, 4

Saturday, October 16th, we made our fourth and final visit to the Louvre for this campaign, mostly finishing up the collection of French painting, looking at the Gallery of Apollo, Etruscan artifacts, and assorted decorative stuff. The Friends of the Louvre deal will get us in next spring, too, so it's been a good plan.

In the David (and his followers) Hall

David version of Madame Recamier; unfinished, as noted before,
because they did not get along, she, a banker's wife and socialite,
he, a Revolutionary

Obligatory Coronation of Empress Josephine by Team David; way

too big for my camera

David's The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons, 1789;
emphasizing public duty over family loyalty, based on Voltaire's
play; incited more than one revolution

I was gratified to see yet another Elisabeth-Louise
Vigee-Le Brun in the big hall, perhaps the Louvre's
most prestigious; another self-portrait with her
daughter Julie

And even more gratified to see her name inscribed among the
collection of biggies that adorn the hall

David's Leonidas at Thermopylae

Now in the adjoining hall, mostly Delacroix and his followers,
which Vicki calls the hall of death and dying; Gericault's massive
Raft of the Medusa 

Antoine Jean Gros, Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylas, 1807

Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapale, 1827; it's a long story but
basically he didn't want all his wives and concubines to fall into
the hands of his conquerors, so had them executed

Delacroix, The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders, 1204;
where most of the Medieval Christian relics came from...

Paul DeLarouche, The Children of Edward [in the Tower], 1830;
we last saw his Execution of Lady Jane Grey at the National
Gallery in August; don't know what his deal was, painting such
moments in another country's history; beautiful, dramatic works
nonetheless

Moving right along, we are now entering the Gallery of Apollo,
long closed for renovation; built for Louis XIV, aka the Sun King,
for his fondness of the classical sun god; now housed what remains
of the royal jewelry, gems, and such; also thirty-some paintings
and a similar number of stucco sculptures; and more

Among the royal gems, this interesting figure; the tongue actually
wags 

And this beauty

And this crown made for Louis XV; not all the jewels are real

Portraits of assorted kings, including personal 

favorite, Francois Premier

The Hyacinth diamond, pinkish, 22 carats, which Louis XIV is
said to have liked wearing in his lapel 

Assorted further gems, precious stoneware, etc.; the Sun King
collected them himself

Central ceiling of the hall, done in the earlier 1800s by Delacroix,
Apollo slaying the serpent...

Greatest and largest of all museums...jusqu'a la prochaine fois...

Petit Palais

We might have skipped the Petit Palais this year, but there was a special exhibition of pre-Raphaelite paintings we wanted to see. The Petit Palais is one of Paris' 14 city museums, and anywhere else would be a city or a nation's major art museum attraction. Thirteen thousand paintings, sculptures, other objects of history and art. For a more thorough introduction, look here, and here and also here. Below I'll focus just on a few things that were new to us. And the pre-Raphaelites.

Petit Palais, built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, from the top of the
Grand Palais, across Winston Churchill Avenue

And let me take this opportunity to say I think the 
French monument to Churchill is vastly superior to
the one in Parliament Square

Among the many halls of sculpture, furnishings, historic items...

And paintings

Another large, contemporary art exhibition, configurations of
glass beads and bricks...

Not what we came to see

Also not what we came to see, but well worth a look: a whole
hall given to photographs and paintings of the historic Mairies
(city halls) of Paris' 20 districts; here, ours, the 2nd; got to love
the self-regarding city

In a collection of Christian icons from the Mediterranean and
Black Sea areas

Martyrs

Devotional icons with metal covers to protect
the paint

A type of classical drinking vessel we'd not seen 
before

In a hall of classical artifacts

The pre-Raphaelites are from a private collection,
on a five year loan, are shown along with the permanent
collections, which include Steens, a Breughel/Jr., a
Rembrandt selfie, Pedro/Paulo, a Claude, an Ingres,
not to mention all the 19th century Parisian stuff; above,
anyhow, is Waterhouse's Lamia, 1909

Edward Byrne-Jones, King Copethua and the Beggar
Maid

Frederic Leighton, Whispers, 1881

Waterhouse, The Rescue

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Betrothal Ring

William Holman Hunt, Il Dolce Far Niente

Rossetti, A Christmas Carol, 1867

So one of our favorites at the Petit Palais is Hector
Guimard's dining room, posted in one of the items
noted above; outside it is a setting of jewelry from,
no less, Fouquet's jewelry store, which we just saw
 at the Carnavalet

Unidentified pre-Raphaelite in the permanent collection

Crossing the Pont Alexandre, looking back at the Grand Palais
(extensive renovation going on)

And now walking in the 7th

To a bonus destination for the day, another of Paris' more famous
market streets

More Louvre Loonies

 Real titles and painters' names given on request...

Divine city planning

"These toes are made for walkin', and that's just 
what they'll do, one of these days these toes are
gonna' walk all over you..."

And now for something completely different...a woman with
three buttocks

"We're all alone; no chaperone can get our number; the world's
in slumber: let's misbehave!"

"Gotcha!"

"You put your right foot in, you take your right
foot out...and that's what it's all about"

Black Friday specials, 1819

Ingres' study for the poet's toes in The Deificaton of Homer;
seriously; probably worth more than any of us...

Monsieur Ed

Le Chat Mort; the French expression for "still life" is nature

morte; what is the symbol for curiosity? I wonder; is this 

painting really finished?

Monet's Monkey, or, The Birth of Impressionism