The Ham Nomads

14 Oct 2015. <FR> Paris —

A full day in the Louvre! We left camp and went straight to the Louvre. With our Museums Pass, we didn't have to go through the long queues to buy tickets, but there is a security check that slowed us a little.

l'Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

The famous (infamous?) Louvre Pyramid

Once inside, the choices are legion! The Louvre is a huge palace, and it contains four floors of treasures, in three main wings — the Sully, the Denon, and the Richelieu.

We decided to make a bee-line for the Mona Lisa before the crowds inundated her too much. Looks like a lot of people had the same idea. Opposite the lady is a large painting of the Wedding Feast at Caana — when you look back towards it, it looks as if the guests are spilling out of the painting to descend on La Gioconda!

Security for the world's most valuable painting is strict!

We went on to the famous Greek statue at the top of the Daru Staircase — The Winged Victory of Samothrace. She has had considerable restoration in the past few years, mainly to undo some nineteenth century restoration that was not up to modern standards. They have retained the 19th century right wing that was added to balance the composition — people are so used to this that they would be somewhat taken aback by a One-Winged Victory!

We wandered rooms filled with Rubens paintings. In one of them, a painter was making a very good copy of one of the paintings. Painters are encouraged throughout the Louvre, copying the masters to learn their techniques. Photography of their work is forbidden, but this chap was happy for me to include him in a long shot of the room.

You go through the Louvre looking at the artworks hanging on the walls, but the building itself is a work of art. Look up at the ceilings and you see wonderful paintings above you!

We had one surprise — there were some impressionist and post-impressionist paintings hung there. This is a surprise, because the impressionists were excluded from the Louvre from the start, and we thought they still were. But we saw some Renoir, Toulouse Lautrec, Degas, Monet, and others hanging there. There are even four Picassos, but this is to commemorate the opening of the new(ish) Picasso Museum here in Paris.

Auguste Renoir. La Lecture

Edgar Degas. La sortie du bain

Pablo Picasso. Le retour du baptême (after le Nain)

We found one Vermeer, and a number of Rembrandts, including some of his famous self portraits.

Vermeer. The Lacemaker (c.1669-70)

Rembrandt. Bathsheba at the bath holding the letter from David (1654)

We went into the apartments of Napoleon III, which are an overwhelming example of French extravagance.

The Grand Salon

The Grand Dining Room

In the Greek statuary area we met up with the Venus de Milo, and marvelled at the four Caryatids. We then explored the Egyptian and Near-Eastern Antiquities.

Aphrodite Anadyomème (Roman, 2nd century BC

Taharqa presenting flasks of wine to the god Hemen
(Egyptian, 2600-2350 BC)

The 'seated scribe' (Egyptian, 2600-2350 BC)

King Seti II (1200-1194 BC)

And we spent some time looking at French revolutionary and Napoleonic paintings by artists such as David, Ingres, Delacroix and Gros.

Louis David. Napoleon crowning Josephine (detail)

Louis David. Madame Récamier, née Julie (1800

Ingres. La baigneuse

Louis David. General Bonaparte (c.1797-1798)

Eugène Delacroix.
The 28th of July. Liberty guiding the people (1830)

Baron Antoine-Jean Gros.
Napoleon on the field of the Battle of Eylau, 9 Feb 1807 (1808)

Altogether a feast of extravagances, and a day here was not enough, but yet too much!If this has whetted your appetite, try going to the Louvre's official website.

Georges de la Tour. Le Tricheur (The Card-Sharp)

School of Fontainebleu. Portrait presumed to be Gabriells d'Estrées and her sister the Duchess of Villars (c. 1594)

Albrecht Dürer. Self portrait (1493)

We left as the place was closing, walked out through the Galerie du Carrousel, where there are top-of-the-range stores, and a direct exit to the Metro station Palais Royale - Musée du Louvre, which is on a direct line back to out Porte Maillot station and the shuttle bus back to the campsite.

(They used the small bus this day!)

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 29,782 miles ( 47,930 km )