Beginning this October the High Museum of Art will present three new exhibitions exploring the evolution of the Louvre's collections from the Napoleonic reign through the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century, when the Louvre emerged from the French Revolution as a public museum.
The exhibitions, part of the High's "Louvre Atlanta"Â partnership, will showcase the birth of archaeology and the concurrent creation of the Louvre's Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern collections.
In June 2008 the High will present an exhibition of the work of Jean-Antoine Houdon, a major artist of the French Enlightenment whose portraiture depicted some of the prominent intellectual and political figures of the time. The exhibitions will highlight many works from the Louvre's collections that have never before been seen in the United States.
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.
"Our partnership with the Louvre will provide the people of the Southeast with an unprecedented opportunity to see Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek and Roman masterpieces from one of the greatest collections of antiquities in the world. It will also bring moving portraits of historic figures from America and France-including Washington, Franklin and Voltaire-created by one of France's greatest artists,"Â noted Michael E. Shapiro, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Director of the High Museum of Art. "The up-close and intimate experience of these treasures is certain to excite and delight visitors of all ages throughout the coming year."Â
The central exhibition, "The Louvre and the Ancient World,"Â 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 20th century (most of the excavations for Near East).
The oldest works in the exhibition are drawn from the ancient cultures of Egypt, Susa (in modern Iran), the Neo-Sumerian city of Tello (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 belonged to the first Egyptian Museum whose curator, Jean-François Champollion, 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 Tello (Neo-Sumerian Period). A special installation will showcase the colossal, ten-foot-long "Tiber"Â-one of the largest sculptures in the Louvre's collections. The statue personifies the Tiber River, Rome's main trade artery. "The Louvre and the Ancient World" will be on view from October 16, 2007, through September 7, 2008.
The picture shows Unknown Artist, "The Tiber," ca. AD 100, marble, Musée du Louvre. Photo: Peter Harholdt by permission of the Musée du Louvre, Paris/High Museum of Art, Atlanta. -- www.high.org
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