The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is a national art museum in Paris, France. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, [and] the most parodied work of art in the world". The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression, monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.
Liberty Leading the People is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the concept of Liberty leads a varied group of people forward over a barricade and the bodies of the fallen, holding aloft the flag of the French Revolution – the tricolour, which again became France's national flag after these events – in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as a symbol of France and the French Republic known as Marianne. The painting is sometimes wrongly thought to depict the French Revolution of 1789.
Pieter de Hooch (Dutch:[ˈpitərdəɦoːx], also spelled "Hoogh" or "Hooghe"; 20 December 1629 – 24 March 1684 was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary, in the Delft Guild of St. Luke, of Jan Vermeer with whom his work shares themes and style. De Hooch was first recorded in Delft on 5 August 1652, when he and another painter, Hendrick van der Burch witnessed the signing of a will.
Gerrit Dou, also known as GerardDouw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe-l'œil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. He was a student of Rembrandt.
Gerard ter Borch, also known as Gerard Terburg, was a Dutch genre painter who lived in the Dutch Golden Age. He influenced fellow Dutch painters Gabriel Metsu, Gerrit Dou, Eglon van der Neer and Johannes Vermeer. According to Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Ter Borch "established a new framework for subject matter, taking people into the sanctum of the home", showing the figures' uncertainties and expertly hinting at their inner lives. His influence as a painter, however, was later surpassed by Vermeer.
Godfried Schalcken was a Dutch genre and portrait painter. He was noted for his mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight, and painted in the exquisite and highly polished manner of the Leiden fijnschilders.
Gabriël Metsu (1629–1667) was a Dutch painter of history paintings, still lifes, portraits, and genre works. He was "a highly eclectic artist, who did not adhere to a consistent style, technique, or one type of subject for long periods". Only 14 of his 133 works are dated.
The Louvre-Lens is an art museum located in Lens, France, approximately 200 kilometers north of Paris. It displays objects from the collections of the Musée du Louvre that are lent to the gallery on a medium- or long-term basis. The Louvre-Lens annex is part of an effort to provide access to French cultural institutions for people who live outside of Paris. Though the museum maintains close institutional links with the Louvre, it is primarily funded by the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region.
The Fortune Teller is an oil painting of circa 1630 by the French artist Georges de La Tour. The work was uncovered in about 1960 and purchased that year by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. François Georges Pariset described the painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, attributing it to La Tour—a likely choice given the calligraphic signature at top right: "G. de La Tour Fecit Luneuilla Lothar". Its authenticity has been questioned in the intervening years, notably by the English art historian Christopher Wright, but The Fortune Teller is generally accepted as La Tour's work. The artist is better known for his chiaroscuro religious compositions, in which the figures are illuminated by a single light source and lack the elaborate costume detail of The Fortune Teller's characters.
Thomas Scott Kaplan is an American businessman, philanthropist and art collector. Kaplan is the world's largest private collector of Rembrandt's works.
Two Women Beside a Linen Chest, with a Child is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch, created in 1663. It is part of the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum.
Woman lacing her bodice beside a cradle is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch, created c. 1660–1663. It is part of the collection of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
Interior with a Young Couple and a Dog (1662) is an oil-on-panel painting by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch; it is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Gabriël Metsu, created c. 1660-1661. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is part of the collection of the Louvre, in Paris.
The Small Holy Family is an oil-on-panel painting by Raphael and assistants, now in the Louvre in Paris. Its name distinguishes it from his Great Holy Family, also in the Louvre. It is signed and dated "RAPHAEL VRBINAS S[anti] PINGEBAT MDXVIII" on the hem of the Madonna's garment.
The Raising of Lazarus is a 1619 oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Baroque artist Guercino, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. A preparatory sketch for the work is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
