Why the Louvre is giving out its exhibits, and who are among the lucky ones who received them

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Louvre Museum appeared in 1793 - more than two centuries ago. Its halls and storerooms contain about three hundred thousand exhibits, and the number of visitors visiting the Louvre during the year has already exceeded ten million. Both that, and another, and the third became the reasons that prompted the French authorities to create additional "louvres" - outside of France, or at least outside of Paris. It was not without scandals - no wonder, because priceless works of world culture have, nevertheless, their price - sometimes too high for the branch museum.

Louvre Lens

An experiment to place part of the museum's exhibits in other cities and even countries began several years ago and has already allowed some results to be summed up.

Several cities, including Amiens, Arras and Calais, fought for the right to become a branch of the Louvre in France, but the choice of the French government fell on the former mining town of Lens, two hundred kilometers north of Paris. For a long time, coal was mined here, and since 1986, when the mines were finally closed, Lance experienced economic difficulties and the population faced unemployment.

In 2004, it was decided to build a museum, and in 2012 it already opened its doors to new visitors. The main painting in the first exhibition was "Liberty Leading the People" by Eugene Delacroix.

All in all, the Louvre donated more than two hundred works for a period of five years, and in addition to this semi-permanent exhibition, it was planned to hold temporary exhibitions on selected topics in the Lance Museum. In the spring of 2019, several hundred different works of art were exhibited in an exhibition dedicated to Homer. The opening of a new museum, and even of global significance, allowed Lance, now almost a ghost town, to improve his affairs. In 2018, the small Louvre was visited by about a million people.

Of course, there is neither an amazing concentration of masterpieces that are daily presented to the attention of the guests of the Parisian Louvre, nor the numerous tourists filling up some of its halls in Lens. This allows you to turn a visit to the museum into a relaxing pastime, enjoying even a few, but no less valuable works of art.

The collection, which is on display in the satellite museum, is selected not from the storerooms of the large Louvre, but from its main collections. When organizing the work of the museum, new principles for the placement of works were introduced. In contrast to the classical division into sections - "Ancient East", "Sculptures", "Fine Arts" and others, Lance offered to get acquainted with the masterpieces of different eras, united in one room by some common idea. This concept of placing exhibits made it possible to experiment with the impression of visitors, to give them the opportunity to compare the art of different centuries and eras, to evaluate the common features of archaic works that are in no way connected with each other by space, but resulted from the laws of the development of civilization common to different peoples.

Louvre Abu Dhabi

Much bolder and more resonant was the decision to provide part of the collection of the Paris Louvre to a new museum in the United Arab Emirates. Louvre Abu Dhabi opened on Saadiyat Island in 2017. The architectural solution for the new building of the museum was designed in the spirit of the Emirates - luxury and the latest technologies, combined with one goal - to amaze and delight the already rather sophisticated modern connoisseur of beauty.

A white building in a futuristic style, surrounded by the sea, an openwork dome that lets sunlight inside, a mesmerizing view at sunset - all this in itself makes an unforgettable impression on visitors. Inside the building is the largest exhibition of an art museum on the Arabian Peninsula - and this becomes the main argument in favor of visiting the museum.

Exhibits were brought to Abu Dhabi not only from the Louvre, but also from the Georges Pompidou Center and Versailles. Formally, the museum is not a branch of the Louvre, but it has a contractual relationship with Paris, which involves the demonstration of works of the main collection of the museum for some time. So, paintings by Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Picasso, sculptures by Rodin and many other masterpieces - more than three hundred in total - went to the Emirates. Despite the fact that the exposition is located in a Muslim country, according to the assurances of the organizers of the exhibitions, this does not have any negative impact on the selection of works.

In Abu Dhabi, as in Lance, a new, modern format of exposition placement has been implemented - according to a common idea, and not in separate sections. So, here the Torah, the Bible and the Koran coexist - as a sign of respect for all religions and the impossibility of separating any of them from the history of culture. The Louvre Abu Dhabi as a museum exists quite recently, but already occupies one of the leading places in the list of must-see tourist sites. In addition, in the neighborhood, on the same Saadiyat Island, it is planned to place other cultural objects, in particular, a branch of the New York Guggenheim Museum of Contemporary Art.

Nevertheless, from the very beginning of the public discussion of the project, the idea of exporting the most valuable works of art abroad, and even outside of Europe, caused conflicting opinions from the very beginning of the public discussion of the project. Thousands of historians, archaeologists and museum workers spoke out against the planned transfer of masterpieces, even a petition was launched demanding not to allow the "sale" of French museums.

Demonstration of the Louvre collections really does cost Abu Dhabi a considerable amount, however, it should be recognized that the country, like, indeed, some of its neighbors, can afford the generosity of art objects.

A few years earlier, the Saudi prince Mohammed ibn Salman bought the most expensive painting in history at the Christie's auction, and the scandal that affected the Louvre Abu Dhabi was also connected with it.

Da Vinci original or fake?

"The Savior of the World" was attributed to the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci and during its existence, starting from about 1500, it changed owners many times, periodically falling out of sight of connoisseurs and specialists.

In 1958, the Savior was sold at auction for £ 45. In 2011, for the first time, a version was expressed and developed that the painting was not painted by a student of the great Leonardo, but by the master himself. Research has been carried out and experts have confirmed da Vinci's authorship. The cost of the painting on the art market has skyrocketed; in 2012, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev bought it for $ 127.5 million. A few years later, "Savior of the World" was again put up for sale and redeemed for a record amount of $ 450.3 million. In the fall of 2018, the show of this work by da Vinci was announced as part of the Louvre Abu Dhabi exposition. However, the painting never got to the museum, and its representatives said they had no idea about its whereabouts. Apparently, the demonstration of the "Savior" planned under an agreement with the museum in the Paris Louvre, which in the fall of 2019 is holding an exhibition dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, was also disrupted.

Among art critics and art connoisseurs, rumors continue to circulate - both that the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism became the real buyer of the painting, and that the Savior is being hidden in order to avoid exposure - after all, experts began to question the version about by da Vinci. In this case, the market value of the painting - even if Leonardo had something to do with the work of his student - will be a much more modest amount, not exceeding two million dollars.

It would be naive to believe that only aesthetic, intangible factors play a role in the construction and organization of the work of museums that host masterpieces of world art. The operation of the Louvre, like its two satellites, is also a serious economic project in which, as in other large financial projects, calculation and public opinion are important. But not for visitors - connoisseurs of beauty can afford to enjoy the original works of the great masters of the past in the silence of spacious, half-empty halls far from Paris. This means that the idea of creating satellites for large museums promises to be implemented more than once.

On how they tried to modernize the building of the old Louvre: 30 years of the scandalous pyramid.