da Vinci Commemoration
Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of Leonardo’s Death
Musée du Louvre: Leonardo da Vinci Retrospektive
October 24, 2019 – until February 24, 2020
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death
(Leonardo da Vinci)
1519 – 2019 : Commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci
ILAB (The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers)
We were reluctant to participate in Le Louvre’s special exhibition. It seemed like the major works are always on display in the museum. Often visitors walk-by them, indistinguishable from all the other masterpieces. And this has all the elements of a major crowd-scene, complicated by trends of overtourism.
But then we learned of supplementary pieces on loan from Italy
The Vitruvian Man
And then we took a look at buying tickets
On the first day, the website was frozen
A few days later we could see blocks of tickets already unavailable, months in advance.
We could almost see time-slots closing real time.
So we bought tickets
And if we didn’t have a history of reselling tickets, it seems like a good opportunity to purchase some extra tickets for resale (but we know better and are unfamiliar about French ticket scalping statutes)
In retrospect, we were surprisingly unimpressed by the exposition (which is clearly more of an indictment on us)
It was lots of stuff that was unimpressive
Our favorite was The Last Supper, which was only a reproduction
The original has not fared well, painted on an unsuitable wall and subject to environmental factors
Is is said that “In 1499, Louis XII contemplated removing the painting from the wall and taking it to France” (wikipedia)
Can you imagine the improved state of this painting if it spent 500 years in the Lourve instead?
Paris for the Holidays 