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 The Louvre has assembled more than 160 paintings, sculptures,
letters and drawings from the Renaissance era in an exhibition
to mark the 500th anniversary of the Italian master's death.
Whether Salvator Mundi, a painting attributed to da Vinci and
sold by auctioneers Christie’s in 2017 for $450 million, and
believed by many art experts to be in the Gulf, will be part of
the show remains to be seen.
Louvre executives have requested its inclusion and still hope it
will arrive for the show, giving an extra frisson of interest in
the runup to its opening.
Da Vinci left his native Italy when his patron died and spent
his last years in France as the guest of the French monarch,
until he died in May 1519 at the Loire Valley chateau that had
become his home.
The exhibition, which opens on Thursday Oct. 24, shows 10 of the
paintings now attributed to da Vinci, including those kept in
the Louvre -- Saint Anne, Saint John the Baptist, The Virgin of
the Rocks and La Belle Ferronnière -- and works lent from other
institutions.
Last week a Venetian judge authorized the loan of a few of da
Vinci's drawings, including the famous "Man of Vitruve", which
will be shown for two months only in Paris due to its fragility.
Specialists disagree on the exact number of works that can be
attributed to the artist, with some putting the figure at 14 and
others saying it is 17.
The da Vinci exhibition includes two dozen drawings lent by
Queen Elizabeth II, along with paintings and sculptures. Some of
the works are by Da Vinci himself, while some are by other
artists and are there to put the Italian maestro's work into
context.
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The exhibition also features infra-red imaging of paintings by da
Vinci, revealing the layers of work that lie underneath the finished
picture, so providing a glimpse of his working methods.
"Leonardo da Vinci paints very slowly. Each painting is a long
improvement of shape and content", said Vincent Delieuvin,
conservator of the Louvre Paintings department.
Diplomatic frictions had cast a shadow over the organization of the
Paris show, with former Italian Prime minister Matteo Salvini saying
pointedly that da Vinci was Italian, not French.
When his patron Giuliano de Medici died, da Vinci left Italy for
France at the invitation of French king François I. Appointed "First
Painter, Engineer and Architect to the King", the aging maestro
settled at the Château du Clos Lucé, near the royal residence of
Amboise.
The Mona Lisa, his most renowned work, has hung at the Louvre since
the French Revolution and is viewed by around 30,000 visitors every
day. That painting is not part of the exhibition.
The museum expects the da Vinci exhibition to have attracted at
least half a million visitors by the time it closes on Feb. 24.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Edited by Christian Lowe and David
Holmes)
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