In Louvre, New Room With View of 'Mona Lisa' (original) (raw)

Arts|In Louvre, New Room With View of 'Mona Lisa'

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/arts/design/in-louvre-new-room-with-view-of-mona-lisa.html

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

April 6, 2005

PARIS, April 5 - Popularity always comes at a price. And in the case of the Louvre, the privilege of owning the "Mona Lisa" has long meant daily traffic jams of excited tourists jostling to be photographed in front of the world's most famous painting. Indeed, the Louvre estimates that 80percent of its visitors come principally to see Leonardo's masterpiece.

Now, at last, respite is promised. After slumming it in a far-off corner of the museum for the past four years, the "Mona Lisa" moved back this week to the 19th-century Salle des États, which has been elegantly refurbished and redesigned to ease the ritual of paying homage to the lady with the mystic smile.

The fragile early-16th-century portrait, thought to be of the Florentine beauty Lisa Gherardini, made the 250-yard journey from the Salle Rosa overnight Sunday under the protective eye of curators and security guards. The Salle des États, a large rectangular gallery in the museum's Denon wing overlooking the Seine, reopens to the public today at 2 p.m.

The "Mona Lisa" was on display in this same gallery from 1966 to 2001, but under less happy conditions. Now, in a beautifully top-lighted, sand-colored room designed by the architect Lorenzo Piqueras, the painting hangs alone on a freestanding wall that divides the gallery. Visitors can enter the Salle des États from the Salle Denon or through two doors leading from the long Grande Galerie.

As part of the reorganization, the museum hopes to do more than better manage the flow of its 6.6 million annual visitors, half of them foreigners. It also wants the painting to be understood in its historical and artistic context and not merely as another "must see" of Paris.

As a result, in the Salle des États, the tiny "Mona Lisa" -- just 30.3 by 21.7 inches -- now hangs opposite Veronese's monumental "Marriage at Cana" -- 32.6 by 22.2 feet -- and is accompanied by 52 works from the Venetian Renaissance, including paintings by Titian, Bassano, Tintoretto and Lotto, and others by Veronese. The Louvre has turned the gallery into the highlight of its extraordinary Italian collection.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT