THE LOUVRE TO OPEN IN ATLANTA AT THE HIGH MUSEUM

Friday, 14 September 2007 23:43

ATLANTA, GA - This October the High Museum of Art will present “The Louvre and the Ancient World,” and “The Eye of Josephine,” two new exhibitions exploring the evolution of the Louvre’s collections from the Napoleonic reign through the end of the 19^th century and during the 20^th century, when the Louvre emerged from the French Revolution as a public museum.

Part of the High’s “Louvre Atlanta” partnership, the exhibitions will showcase the birth of archaeology and the concurrent creation of the Louvre’s Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern collections. Highlighting many works from the Louvre’s collections that have never before been seen in the United States, the exhibitions continue the High’s tradition of partnering with global institutions to bring the world’s art to Atlanta.

Lead patronage for the project has been provided by longtime High Museum Board Member Anne Cox Chambers, who is joined by Accenture as Presenting Sponsor and by UPS, Turner Broadcasting Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Air Lines and AXA Art Insurance as Lead Corporate Partners. The Foundation Partner is The Sara Giles Moore Foundation.

“The Louvre and the Ancient World,” (October 16, 2007 — September 7, 2008) features masterpieces from the founding cultures of Western civilization and will include more than 70 works from the Louvre’s unparalleled Egyptian, Near Eastern and Greco-Roman antiquities collections. Showcasing works dating from the third millennium BC through the third century AD, the exhibition will examine the rise of the museum and its collections of antiquities under Napoleon, the discoveries and decipherment of hieroglyphics and cuneiform and the Louvre’s leading role in excavating the cradle of civilization at the end of the nineteenth century and during the 20^th century.

The oldest works in the exhibition are drawn from the ancient cultures of Egypt, Susa (in modern Iran), the Neo-Sumerian city of Telloh (in modern Iraq) and the Canaanite city of Ugarit (in modern Syria). Key works from these periods include the diorite “Statue of Wahibre, Governor of Upper Egypt” (Late period Egyptian); an Egyptian papyrus that was studied by Jean-François Champollion, the Louvre’s first curator of Egyptian art who is credited with first deciphering hieroglyphics (Third Intermediate Period); an Attic black-figure amphora attributed to the potter Exekias (550–540 BC); and a dolerite “Statue of Gudea, Prince of Lagash” from Telloh (Neo-Sumerian Period). A special installation will showcase the colossal, ten-foot-long “Tiber”—one of the largest sculptures in the Louvre’s collections. The statue personifies the Tiber River, Rome’s main trade artery.

“The Eye of Josephine,” (October 16, 2007 through May 18, 2008) opening concurrently with “The Louvre and the Ancient World,” will reassemble more than 60 masterworks from the collection of Greco-Roman and Egyptian antiquities that were installed by the Empress Josephine at Malmaison, her residence located on the outskirts of Paris. In 1802 Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, gave Napoleon Bonaparte, then prime Consul, and his wife Josephine a collection of antiquities unearthed at Herculaneum and Pompeii as a peace offering. Josephine’s display of the works in her private residence established her role as one of the earliest and most passionate art collectors of her time.

The exhibition, which will reunite Josephine’s antiquities for the first time since their dispersal in 1814, after Josephine’s death and their acquisition by the Louvre among various collections from 1819 until 1865, will feature fragments of frescoes, bronzes, marbles, an extensive group of Greek vases and an Egyptian sculpture. Key works from this collection include a paestan calyx-Krater (ca. 360–350 BC), a bronze statue of “Mercury” (before AD 79) and a set of nine frescoes depicting the muses and Apollo from Pompeii (AD 62–79). A group of objects matching the taste evoked by Josephine’s antiquities collection will also be on view to represent their influence on 19^th-century style.

“The Tiber”: Restoration

One of the largest and most important Roman antiquities in the Louvre’s collection, “The Tiber,” will be the centerpiece of “The Louvre and the Ancient World.” The statue, discovered in 1512, decorated a sanctuary dedicated to the Egyptian god Serapis and was the pendant to a similar statue depicting the Nile, which is currently in the Vatican collection in Rome. The work explores the river’s link to Roman mythology and its fertility. It depicts a river god accompanied by both Romulus and Remus, the city’s legendary twin founders, while the reliefs on its base illustrate another myth about the founding of Rome and the river’s beneficial effects.

In preparation for the upcoming exhibition, and thanks to the generosity of both H.S.H. the Prince d’Arenberg and Victaulic, a company located in Easton, Penn., the Louvre has restored “The Tiber.” The restoration of this marble sculpture has led to new research on the carving techniques used to create it. The conservation of this work, along with a set of frescoes from Pompeii that will be displayed in “The Eye of Josephine” exhibition, was initiated by the High's partnership with the Louvre. Additional support for the conservation of objects in “The Eye of Josephine” exhibition was provided by the Leon Levy Foundation and the Katherine John Murphy Foundation.

Louvre Atlanta

The High Museum of Art launched its unprecedented three-year partnership with the Musée du Louvre launched in October 2006 to critical acclaim, continuing the High’s longstanding strategy of collaborating with international institutions to bring great art to Atlanta. “Louvre Atlanta” is bringing hundreds of works of art from Paris to Atlanta through a series of long-term thematic exhibitions exploring the range, depth and historic development of the Louvre’s collections.

“Louvre Atlanta” opened on October 14, 2006, with the exhibitions “Kings as Collectors,” “The King’s Drawings” and “Faces of History and Myth: Busts from the Musée du Louvre.” Since then, the High has welcomed nearly 200,000 visitors; approximately 20 percent have been schoolchildren, and the Museum already has reservations for over 20,000 additional students in the coming months. Since “Louvre Atlanta” opened, the High’s membership has grown to more than 50,000 households, which ranks in the top 10 among American art museums.

Exhibition Organization and Catalogue

Managing curators for the “Louvre Atlanta” exhibitions are David Brenneman, Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, and Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, Curator of Sculpture, at the Musée du Louvre. The exhibitions are accompanied by a series of scholarly catalogues with essays from the French managing curators and other contributors.

Musée du Louvre

The Musée du Louvre and its continual architectural transformation have dominated central Paris since the late 12th century. The history of this extraordinary structure and the museum that has occupied it since 1793 created universal appeal for more than eight million visitors in 2005. The Louvre’s collection spans works of art up to 1848. With 35,000 works of art on display, eight curatorial departments—Near-Eastern, Egyptian, and Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculptures; Decorative Arts; Paintings; and Prints and Drawings—are a necessity. Celebrated works in the collections include Da Vinci’s “La Joconde,” best known as the “Mona Lisa”; Egyptian antiquities such as the “Seated Scribe,” the “Jewels of Rameses II” and the “Code of Hammurabi”; and Greek antiquities such as the “Winged Victory of Samothrace” and the “Venus de Milo.” For more information about the Musée du Louvre, please visit www.louvre.fr.

High Museum of Art

The High Museum of Art, founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, is the leading art museum in the southeastern United States. With more than 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19^th- and 20^th-century American art; significant holdings of European paintings and decorative art; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High’s Media Arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. In November 2005 the High opened three new buildings by architect Renzo Piano that more than doubled the Museum’s size, creating a vibrant “village for the arts” at the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta. For more information about the High, please visit www.High.org .