The Louvre sponsored a free day today to the Museum of Decorative Arts which is housed in the north-west wing of the Louvre. The main exhibition was to showcase the current trends in Korean design and traditional arts. We saw some really top flight examples of pottery, furniture design, and metal work among the many exhibits, and of course there were many other things which did not connect with us at all. 
After seeing that exhibition we decided to visit the permanent collection again. We started with a small collection of works by Dubuffet who donated his works when a friend was the director of the museum. 
The last time we were here we got through about 80 percent of the museum but we got chased out of the last 20 percent containing the art nouveau and art deco sections because the museum was closing. Today we got to have a closer look at that last 20 percent.
Tomorrow we're taking a Louvre field trip up to Lens to see the Louvre satellite museum. Lens is a former coal mining region of France up close to the Belgian border and has been very depressed with the closing of the coal mining, so we're eager to see how this has impacted the area.
Now I really want to see those rooms of the Louvre. The decorative arts are so appealing to me!
ReplyDeleteHave you stumbled across the room of Degas' pastels that I have not been able to remember where I saw them? They may have been in the Louvre for all I know!
ReplyDeleteThe rooms you refer to Gail are in the separate museum of Arts Decoratif, so I don't know the exact relationship.
ReplyDeletePeter, we've never found them although I did find the rooms titled "drawings" and it turned out to be a temporary exhibits room, so perhaps the Degas pastels were part of a temporary exhibit.