New Louvre opens in Lens
A new art museum in the northern city will show off masterpieces by artists like da Vinci and Delacroix.
A MAJOR new branch of the Louvre art museum is about to open in northern city Lens.
The Louvre Lens, which is inaugurated by President Hollande today and opens next Wednesday, features a selection of some 200 masterpieces from the Louvre’s core collections, not just items retrieved from storage.
The highlight will be Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People which was painted in 1830 to commemorate the July Revolution of the same year.
The concept is to show off pieces from the same period but from different styles and cultures alongside each other, as opposed to the main Paris museum which has more narrowly-themed galleries.
Visitors will be able to see, for example, Ingrès’ painting of Monsieur Bertin (1832) alongside a Turkish funeral monument and a giant portrait of a ruler by Iranian painter Mehr Ali.
There will also be temporary exhibitions – starting with one on the Renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci’s recently-restored Virgin and child with Saint Anne.
Entry to the main “Gallérie du Temps” will be free for a year, while the temporary show, lasting six months, will be €9.
The museum is on the site of a former coal mine. It is a partnership between the Louvre and local authorities in the area and also attracted EU funds. More than 700,000 visitors a year are expected and some are hoping it will have an impact comparable to that of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao – though the project is not on the same scale (€150 million compared to more than a billion).
Photo: Liberty guiding the people, by Eugène Delacroix
