Living a French Life - My 10 Must-Sees at the Louvre

Your Weekly Voilà: My Top 10 Picks for the Louvre 😊💕🎨🇫🇷

The first time I visited the Louvre was in 1978. I was a young francophile of 14 and my French teacher had carefully laid out a list of "must-sees" when I toured the museum. As a dutiful student, I crossed off every item. My parents had grown weary hours earlier and left me to my "treasure hunt" in order to enjoy a coffee turned le déjeuner on the Rue de Rivoli. I finally joined them as they ate their last bites of dessert, dizzy and overwhelmed but totally enamored.

When you visit the Louvre for the first time, you will want to experience the iconic masterpieces in her collection: Leonardo's La Joconde or the Mona Lisa; Venus de Milo - the 1st-century BCE Greek woman with no arms - Winged Victory of Samothrace - the massive statue at the top of the stairs in the Sully wing commemorating a Hellenistic battle. You have to experience each of these human achievements in person.

What this Weekly Voilà shares is a few of my Louvre favorites that you might miss given you won't find them on the museum map. (By the way, the map is a "must-have" when you start your tour.)

The first time my husband and children experienced the Louvre, 2007.

Someone at some point thought it was a good idea to white-wash over 15th-century Botticelli frescos. Painted on the loggia walls of the Villa Lemmi in Tuscany, three frescos were discovered in 1873. The Louvre purchased two of them. The third was too badly damaged and remains in place. We know little about the fragments. Do they commemorate the marriage of Lorenzo Tornabuoni and Giovanna Degli Albizi in 1486? Probably not since the frescos are now considered to be of an earlier date. No matter. I always head to Botticelli's Venus and the Three Graces Offering Gifts to a Young Lady before beginning any tour of the Louvre. They exemplify the Italian Renaissance.

Here you are on the first floor of the Denon wing. From there, tuck into the next room and experience one of the finest collections of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

You can take photographs of the artworks in the permanent collection. The use of flash and other lighting equipment is prohibited. Photography and filming are strictly prohibited in the temporary exhibition rooms.

Think tiny paintings on a page. First created in the 6th century and popularized across Europe into the 15th century, illuminated manuscripts centralized the command of the medieval churches and monasteries. It was a new era of textual literacy, spiritual devotion, and material culture.

Given the delicate materials used to create manuscripts and the fact that medieval Europe was in a constant state of war, it is astonishing that any of these pages still exist. The Louvre houses one of the finest collections from Italian, French, Flemish, and Germanic artists. Jean Colombe is a personal favorite. You need to get up close and take in the detail. This is a rare glimpse into medieval life. Each work requires an intimate moment. Often, this is not a problem given that most visitors walk right on by. You can have this corner of the Mollien rooms to yourself.

To be sure, I have a definite color palette I enjoy. But what fascinates me about medieval manuscripts are the delicate, natural materials such as gold leaf, silverpoint, and rich mineral-derived paints that are used to create these miniature works of art. Each manuscript was carefully illustrated, gilded, and written by hand, requiring a very high degree of cratsmanship. This favorite artwork above is Saint John the Evangelist by Jean Colombe. He was a French miniature painter and illuminator of manuscripts in the 15th century. He is known for his work - Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. That manuscript you must view at the Château de Chantilly.

Depicting the female form and Jean Auguste Ingres. The two go together perfectly. The Bather or also known by one of its 19th-century owners, The Valpinçon Bather was painted in 1808 while Ingres was studying at the French Academy in Rome.

Ingres has masterfully depicted a calm and sensual work of harmony and light. It is pure neoclassicism. Or is it? Contemporary critics often found his style bizarre, distorting form and space. Ingres proved an important precursor of modern art. His work influenced Picasso and Matisse. Take it in for a few minutes. You'll see the brilliance of this artist.

There is no mythological reference serving as a pretext for the nude. She is the sole subject of the work. Framed by tapestries that highlight the arching curve other back. She is both sexual and chaste. Find her on the Sully wing, 2nd floor, Ingres room.

I have a thing for the color French blue. The Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer, painted The Astronomer in 1668. This satisfies my desire to take in blues and browns that skirt the shades of grey. The colors of this painting draw me in more than the subject matter. Although, this is one of only two paintings that were created or have survived with solitary male figures as its focal point. Portraits of scientists were a favorite subject matter for 17th-century Dutch painting; however, Vermeer preferred capturing women doing simple daily tasks. You can find his The Lacemaker just opposite from The Astronomer.

An interesting bit of history, The Astronomer was bought at the end of the 19th-century by Alphonse James de Rothschild. It was later inherited by his son, Édouard. When Paris was invaded by the Germans in 1940, the painting was seized from Rothschild's hotel room. There is a small swastika stamped on the back of the painting in black ink. The painting was returned to the Rothschilds after the war and was acquired by the French state as a payment of inheritance taxes in 1983. It has been at the Louvre ever since.

I adore everyday objects. Something about imagining an individual holding the item. Their hands around it. Admiring it. Using it. You must see the Pyxis of al-Mughira from 968 CE. A pyxis is a cylindrical box used for cosmetics. If the box was opened, you would find small silver containers of perfume. This particular pyxis was a gift to an 18-year-old al-Mughira, the son of a caliph. It is among the best surviving examples of the royal ivory carving tradition in Islamic Spain.

Look closely and you will see the depiction of human figures. Iconography is rare in Islamic art. Scholars argue that their inclusion in this piece expresses the political authority and legitimacy of the Umayyad Caliphs over the Abbasid Caliphs, who ruled in Baghdad.

Art is not created in a vacuum. This is clearly a political statement.

The Department of Islamic Art at the Louvre was refurbished and re-opened in 2012. The collection contains more than 19,000 artworks from the "classic" regions of Islam, from Spain to Northern India, and spanning a period of over 1,300 years, (7th to the 19th century CE.)

Let's head to the basement of the Louvre. Time to take in a bit of Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the Etruscans. Stop to admire The Sarcophagus of the Spouses. It may be a tomb or a very large urn. We're not sure because the Etruscans practiced both burial and cremation. Unlike the early Greeks where banquets were reserved only for men, Etruscan women held an important place in society. Look at these two. She is his equal. Same proportions and in a similar pose. They are reclining on cushions in the form of wineskins, a reference to the sharing of wine, a ceremony that was part of the funerary ritual. I love how they are smiling. She is tenderly clasped by her husband. She pores perfume into his hand, another reference to the funerary ritual. In her left hand, she is holding a small, round object, a pomegranate, a symbol of immortality.

You must explore the ground floor of the Louvre. We discussed the medieval foundations located here in last Friday's Weekly Voilà. Here is where you will also find these two love birds. Denon wing, Ground floor, Etruria I room.

The Law Code of Hammurabi is a work of art, history, and literature wrapped into a huge basalt stele. It is both artistic and practical, an emblem of Mesopotamian civilization. The king of Babylon, Hammurabi, in the 18th century BCE decided to write his civil law code in hard stone, an expression of the strength of his laws and it prevented others to change what was recorded or add their own additions. It is the most complete legal work of Antiquity, dating back to earlier than the biblical laws.

At the top, you find King Hammurabi listening to the sun god Shamash, god of justice. The text, which occupies most of the stele, is written in cuneiform script in the Akkadian language. It gives you the role of Hammurabi as "protector of the weak and oppressed" and sums up 300 laws and legal decisions governing daily life in the kingdom of Babylon. "Should an individual do such and such a thing, such and such a thing will happen to him or her." Remarkable for its legal content, Hammurabi's Code is an exceptional source of information about the society, religion, economy, and history of this period.

Standing over 7 feet tall, you cannot miss The Code of Hammurabi, 1750 BCE. Richelieu wing, Ground floor, Mesopotamia room.

After you make your way to see the Louvre's most famous piece in her collection, what is believed to be the portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant, Francesco del Giocondo - hence the title La Gioconda or in French, La Joconde - turn around. On the opposite wall from the Mona Lisa, you find the Louvre's largest painting, Paolo Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana, 1563. It is more than 700 square feet! Enormous. When Napolean conquered Italy in 1797, he raided the country's monasteries and churches for artwork to add to his collection. One was this masterpiece from the refectory of Venice's San Giorgio Maggiore. To get it back to France, he sliced the painting in half. Yep. Look close. You can still see the line where they put it back together. (There is a copy of the work now hanging in the exact spot in San Giorgio Maggiore - sans line.)

There is a lot going on in this painting. While the subject is the wedding feast in Cana, Galilee, where tradition holds that Jesus turned water into wine, this banquet is pure Venetian. The bride and groom are seated at the left end of the table, leaving the center space for Christ. He is surrounded by his mother Mary, his disciples, clerks, princes, add in some Venetian noblemen, folks in turbans, and servants. There are more than 130 party-goers mixing biblical figures with contemporaries of Veronese. The artist, himself, is depicted in white with a viola next to Titian and Bassano. They make up the entertainment for the banquet and are seated right up front in the painting . . . in front of Jesus. Every guest has a knife, fork, and napkin. No detail is overlooked. Throw in a man ogling a woman's breasts, some dogs, a parakeet, a cat, and you have one crazy painting. You can't look away.

Veronese selected costly pigments imported from the Far East by Venetian merchants: yellow-oranges, vivid reds, and lapis lazuli are used extensively in the drapery and the sky. Following a 3-year restoration, the colors have regained their force and brilliance, sometimes even undergoing complete modification as in the case of the master of ceremony's mantle, which was changed from red to green — its original hue.nDenon wing, First floor, the Mona Lisa room. Look for the really big painting.

Visitors to the Louvre could always peruse galleries of Old Master paintings. There are plenty from which to choose. But there are masterworks of African art that should not be missed, a 15th-century bronze sculpture from the ancient kingdom of Benin, or a 19th-century wooden mask of the Baga people.

But I want to note works of art that you will no longer find at the Louvre. We need to address the elephant in the room. Much in European museum collections is stolen art. Last year, President Macron called for the return of thousands of artworks to West Africa where they were stolen during the colonial period. This could make waves across Europe's national museums to deaccession state-owned art. Yes. It is a great loss to the museums. But imagine what it will mean to young individuals who never had the opportunity to experience these important works of art of their own culture. It is a debate that will be argued - passionately - for decades.

This Ngil mask is beautiful in its geometry, craftsmanship, and style. It is traditionally associated with the Fang people of Gabon. The mask is designed to inspire respect, awe, and fear. Fang masks influenced modern artists like Picasso who incorporated cubism, stylistic aesthetic, and heavily emphasized anthropological attributes such as an elongated face into his artwork.

Meet Ain Ghazal. At 9,000 years old, Ain is the oldest piece in the Louvre's collection. He has only been with the museum for 30 years. The Jordanians generously lent him to the Louvre and so far, they haven't asked for him back. There are more of him back in Jordan and around the world in other museum collections. Thirty-two statues were found in two separate pits at a neolithic archaeological site at Ain Ghazal.

While some archaeologists believe the statues represent ancestors from the villages, their exact purpose remains uncertain.

The Ain Ghazal statue is made of gypsum and was discovered in 1985. It underwent a decade-long restoration work at the Smithsonian in Washington before it arrived at the Louvre's Near Eastern Antiquities department in 1997. (Yep. That's the after photo ;) Sully wing, Ground floor, Room D.

I suppose this brings us to the question of what is the purpose of an art museum? To collect. To preserve. To interpret works of art. True. And then there is inspiration and education. Learning about new cultures and looking at objects from a different perspective. Art museums were created before the age of photography. Before you could reproduce an image and easily share it. Art museums are a gathering spot, bringing together different cultures into one space. Yet, as mentioned this is also problematic as ethical claims that objects should reside in the regions where they were made or found are debated.

Still . . . an art museum provides a direct and immediate encounter with art. They preserve artifacts for future generations and allow for the development of ideas that can influence the present and future. As they say: A picture is worth a thousand words.

That is a lot of words contained in the Louvre.

Make some art this weekend.

À bientôt mon amie,
Karen 🇫🇷