SPECIAL PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MUSEO DI CAPODIMONTE
AN EXHIBITION AT THE HEART OF THE COLLECTION
Naples in Paris: the Louvre hosts the museo di Capodimonte
7 june 2023 - 8 january 2024
denon wing, Salon Carré and Grande Galerie
Sully wing, Salle de la Chapelle
7 june - 25 september 2023
Sully wing, Salle de l’Horloge
Exhibition curators: Sébastien Allard, director of the Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, and Sylvain Bellenger, director of the Museo di Capodimonte.
Associate curators: Charlotte Chastel-Rousseau, curator in the Department of Paintings, Dominique Cordellier, curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings, Musée du Louvre; Alessandra Rullo, curator of national heritage, Patrizia Piscitello, curator of national heritage and Carmine Romano, curator of national heritage, Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte.
Reasserting the importance of collaborative efforts among European museums, the Musée du Louvre has formed a partnership of unprecedent scope with the Museo di Capodimonte for 2023.
The royal palace (reggia in Italian), which once served as a hunting lodge for Naples’ Bourbon monarchs, is now one of the largest museums in Italy, as well as one of the most important picture galleries in Europe in terms of both number and quality of works. Capodimonte is one of the few museums in Italy whose collection covers all schools of Italian painting. It also houses the second largest department of drawings (after the Uffizi) and a remarkable collection of porcelain.
Approximately sixty major masterpieces from Capodimonte will be exhibited in three different places in the Louvre. The glamorous Grande Galerie will host a spectacular encounter between two of the world’s most important collections of Italian painting; the Salle de la Chapelle, meanwhile, will focus on the origins and diversity of those parts of the Capodimonte collection largely assembled by the Farnese and Bourbon families. Finally, the Salle de l’Horloge will feature four masterpieces of drawing from the former Farnese collection – one autograph cartoon by Michelangelo, another by Raphael, and two others by assistants, all displayed opposite drawings by Raphael and his followers already in the Louvre.
Extending beyond the Louvre’s galleries, an ambitious programme of cultural events will lend this occasion the dimension of a veritable Neapolitan season in Paris.
Exhibition in the Galerie RICHELIEU
In 2023 the Louvre is launching a programme to renovate its temporary exhibition galleries. The Galerie Richelieu will be closed from 7 March until early autumn 2023.
The treasury of Notre Dame Cathedral. From its origins to Viollet-le-Duc
18 october 2023 - 29 january 2024
Richelieu wing, level–1
Exhibition curators: Jannic Durand, honorary director of the Department of Decorative Arts, Musée du Louvre; Anne Dion-Tenenbaum, Michèle Bimbenet-Privat and Florian Meunier, curators in the Department of Decorative Arts, Musée du Louvre.
As restoration work on Notre Dame Cathedral comes to a close – and before its treasury is returned to the Gothic revival edifice built for it from 1845 to 1850 by Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugène Viollet-Le-Duc – the Louvre’s temporary exhibition rooms in the Richelieu wing will host a show devoted to the treasury, from its beginnings to its high point during the Second Empire (1852–1870) thanks to Viollet-Le-Duc’s efforts.
The cathedral treasury had to be entirely reassembled following the French Revolution. Today it is famous for the rearkable relics it contains, notably the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross originally held in the treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle but transferred to new reliquaries at Notre Dame under Napoleon I (1804–1814). The cathedral treasury is also famous for splendid masterworks of French precious metalworking collected in the nineteenth century, in particular ones designed by Viollet-Le-Duc during the Second Empire, providing extraordinary testimony to the history of Notre Dame as well as the history of France.
For the first time, however, the exhibition will also seek to go back in time, exploring the history of the treasury prior to the French Revolution. Inventories, historic accounts, paintings, illuminated manuscripts, prints and other illustrated documents, along with several surviving pieces, will trace part of the long story of Notre Dame’s treasury starting from the Merovingian era. It will offer a glimpse of a lavishness that rivalled even the dazzling objects made for Notre Dame in the nineteenth century.Featuring roughly one hundred items, the exhibition will thereby tell the story of the treasury of the cathedral of Paris and its resurrection in the nineteenth century, all set in the context of its age-old history.
exhibitions in the department of prints and drawings
In 2023, the Louvre is launching a programme to renovate its temporary exhibition galleries. The Rotonde Sully will be closed from January to late October 2023.
Claude Gillot
9 november 2023 – 26 february 2024
Sully wing, Salle de l’Horloge
Exhibition curators: Hélène Meyer, curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings, and Xavier Salmon, director of the Department of Prints and Drawings, Musée du Louvre.
Draughtsman and engraver Claude Gillot (Langres, 1673–Paris, 1722) owes much of his reputation to the whimsy of his drawings and the freedom of his prints, earning him the image of an undisciplined artist. His varied, abundant output of small illustrative scenes, appreciated in private circles and among the Paris bourgeoisie, testified to the late-seventeenth-century emergence of an early rococo style, full of inventiveness, poetry and strangeness. Aloof from the official art of the court in Versailles, his work reflected dynamic developments in the commedia dell’arte, fables and theatre.
By bringing together some one hundred works, this show seeks to demonstrate that drawing, in its technical diversity, was Gillot’s favoured means of expression – his painted work, in contrast, is rare, being limited to a dozen canvases, some of which raise questions of attribution.
contemporary art exhibition
After the Masters: A tribute to Claude Rutault (1941-2022)
19 april - 25 september 2023
room 337 dedicated to the latest news of the department of egyptian antiquities
Claude Rutault (1941–2022) was an artist who never stopped questioning painting. Through his « Definitions-Methods », he sought to demonstrate both an artwork’s materiality and its abstract nature. His works, often prompted by a deep but novel twist on art history, as well as his writings, have helped to shape perceptions on art history and its current situation. In 1993, Claude Rutault had been part of Copier-Créer (Copy-Create), a major exhibition at the Musée du Louvre.
One year after his passing, the Musée du Louvre has joined forces with the Musée d’Orsay in response to an initiative by the Centre Georges Pompidou to show just how relevant the work and vision of Claude Rutault are today. In line with the artist’s approach to the history of painting, the Louvre has chosen to include one of his works alongside the ‘Fayum mummy portraits’ at the entrance to the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, whose current feature is devoted to the point in art history when these mummy portraits first appeared. The artist’s unique vision is thereby revealed, providing a perfect foil to Rodin at the Musée d’Orsay and to Marcel Duchamp at the Centre Georges Pompidou. It is a vision whereby art history – like the Fayum portrait incorporated into Claude Rutault’s work – is embedded into the contemporary.
spotlight exhibitions in the curatorial departments
Carthage and its sanctuary. Stelae for the goddess Tanit
starting 25 january 2023
Richelieu wing, Hall Colbert, department of near estern antiquities, room 223 on latest news
Exhibition curator: Hélène Le Meaux, Department of Near Eastern Antiquities, musée du Louvre.
Jean Limosin, enameller to the King (about 1580-1646)
starting 25 january 2023
Exhibition curator: Françoise Barbe, Department of Decorative Arts, musée du Louvre.
Armed Gods. On the recent acquisition of a votive panel from Roman Egypt
18 april – 25 september 2023
Denon Wing, level -1, department of egyptian antiquities, room 337 on latest news
Exhibition curator: Caroline Thomas, Department of Egyptian Antiquities, musée du Louvre.
Islamic art. The department's new acquisitions (2012-2022)
19 april-25 september 2023
room dedicated to the latest news of the department of islamic art
Exhibition curator: Gwenaelle Fellinger, Department of Islamic Art, musée du Louvre.
on loan to the department of near eastern antiquities
A Colossus from the Arabian desert
On Five-year loan from the Royal Commission for Alula (RCU)
7 september 2022 – 7 september 2027
Sully wing, level 0, room 314 (arabia)
From Dilmun to Tylos: an archaeological journey in the Kingdom of Bahrain
Loan from the Kingdom of Bahrain
6 october 2022 - june 2027
Richelieu wing, level 0, room 230
partnership between the musée delacroix and the musée courbet
Delacroix pays a visit to Courbet
23 october 2023 - 5 february 2024
Musée départemental Gustave-Courbet, Ornans
at the louvre-lens
Landscapes
29 march - 24 july 2023
temporary exhibitions gallery
Fantastic animals
27 september 2023 - 15 january 2024
temporary exhibitions gallery
outside the louvre in france
Victories
6 april - 17 september 2023
Musée national du Sport, Nice
outside the louvre abroad
Painting Love in the Louvre collections
1 march- 12 june 2023
National Arts Center, Tokyo
27 june - 24 september 2023
Kyocera Museum of art, Kyoto
Mari, City of builders: the age of Shakkanakkus
16 september 2023 - 7 january 2024
Musée royal de Mariemont, Morlanwelz
The entire program, including exhibitions outside the Louvre, is detailed in the downloadable exhibition calendar below.
