…I just read this….but yes, I do personally believe that most museum arts are the originals unless it’s somehow impossible to display an original…
If you understand how the collections of the Louvre originated, you will understand that its art objects are originals. The few replicas that are displayed are copies of classical originals which have been lost, as I’ll explain below.
The Louvre was originally a fortress tower built by the king Philippe August in the late 12th century. As France became more civilised, the Louvre was enlarged into a palace and became the residence of French royalty. As we decorate the walls of our homes with pictures and photographs, so the kings and queens of European countries decorated their apartments and staterooms. Yet, as some of the rich do even now, they collected for fame, status and power, and they were able to call upon the greatest painters of the day.
The French monarchs resided at the Louvre Palace for five hundred years, until Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles in 1682. By that time the royal collections amounted to hundreds of paintings and other art objects. One of the most important patrons was François 1st, who reigned early to mid-16th century, who brought Leonardo da Vinci from Italy to live in France and who bought a number of his paintings, including the famous Mona Lisa. This king also converted the medieval château of the Louvre into a Renaissance palace. Architectural additions and changes continued to be made by his son, Henri II and, in the late 16th to early 17th century, Henri IV. Many of the apartments, galleries and pavillons of the Louvre are considered architectural masterpieces in their own right. Both King Henris were married to Italian patricians from the House of Medicis, the pre-eminent patron of the arts in Renaissance Florence, and the two queens further added to the royal collections.
These collections continued to increase at Versailles under Louis XIV who was one of the most ambitious royal patrons in the history of France. He ruled his court and France with what is known as absolutism and, more than any other French monarch, used art to enhance his fame, power and prestige.
Opening the collections to the public was an idea of the French Revolution which advocated equality for all. The revolutionary government inaugurated the “Grand Gallery” as the first part of the Louvre Museum on the first anniversary of the fall of the Monarchy.
The French Revolution changed the holdings of the Louvre in several ways. Churches and cathedrals were stripped of their paintings (many by great masters), precious vestments and sculptures. Some of this art was sold to finance the revolutionary wars, but some found its way into the Louvre. Just as kings had acquired art to demonstrate their power, the revolutionary government now drew up concrete plans to acquire art from conquered nations as a show of strength. Napoleonic military campaigns systematically took masterpieces by Rembrandt and Rubens from the Low Countries, paintings and sculptures from all over Italy, including the Vatican, over a thousand paintings from the Austria and Prussia: Vienna, Berlin and Potsdam. About half of the total have been returned as of today; attempts at requisitions are ongoing.
You ask if the Louvre exhibits replicas. It does, but probably not in the sense you had in mind. The museum contains a few replicas which are Roman copies of Greek originals: these Greek sculptures were very much admired in the ancient world but have been lost, and the copies themselves are considered works of art. One of the most famous is Venus Genetrix (the goddess of love as founder of the family), cut from Paros marble, which is famous for its fine grain and transparency.
Other Roman replicas of the Greek original are housed in major museums around the world, including the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Archaeological Museum in Thessalonica, Greece. In other words, displaying these types of replicas is not exceptional.
I have not mentioned all of the kings who made major contributions to the royal collections, and I have passed over the lesser-known furniture, jewellery, fine books and other art objects which make up the half-million rich inventory of the Louvre. But I hope that this selection will help you to see how seriously French royalty supported art from the time of the Renaissance and how the Louvre amassed one of the fullest collections of masterpieces – by means both legitimate and illegitimate – in the world.
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