Wednesday, June 8, 2016

June 8 Louvre tour with Malcolm

Started in the statue courtyards aka the Richelieu wing.
The green statue was one of four that were at the foot of a statue of Louis XIV. When he was overturned, his statue was melted down but the statues of his victims were left untouched.
Four statues representing the four rivers
The apartments of Napoleon Bonaparte III <one picture of Catherine de Medici>
Then we moved into the French painters
John the Good (Jean Le Bon) - the oldest picture of a French royal <picture>
Also saw pictures by Seuer and Poussin. Also some Vermeers, Goyen, and Dujardin in between the Richilieu and Sully wings (the Dutch and Flemish rooms mainly being closed at the time for renovation, some paintings had been kept out).
Next we went down three levels to walk through the moat of the royal palace (1200s/1300s, probably filled in during the 1500s) that had been excavated in the 1980s
Through the Greek antiquities to see the Venus de Milo and the winged Victory of Samothrace discovered in 1863.
The Coronation of Napoleon <picture>
And of course the Italian Renaissance -- Titian, da Vinci, Digiorgio. "She looks like the kind of women who promises more than she delivers" -- Oscar Wilde
Ending at some of Michaelangelo's statues

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