Wander inside the Louvre :meeting with the Greek collection.s

Today ,the little art seeker has wandered inside the beautiful and inspiring rooms devoted to the Greek sculptures.

The room we’ve chosen is called”salle du manège”and it’s not the most frequented inside the museum but really worth while to be seen!!!

The room is located on the ground floor of the north wing of Napoleon III’s Louvre and it was once the imperial riding school.

Now it houses sculptures from the great aristocratic collections of antiquities amassed in France and Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries.The sculptures were restored by famous sculptors such as Girardon and Pietro Bernini.

The little art seeker has chosen for you a few artefacts that belonged to the Borghese family but also to the French cardinals Richelieu(1585-1642) and Mazarin (1602-1661)and the kings of France.

From the 16th century onwards, kings of France received antiques as diplomatic presents from Italy.

We admired the lion made of green basanite and yellow marble ,from the private collection of the cardinal Alexandre Albani(1692-1779)realized in the first century A.D.

Alessandro Albani (15 October 1692 – 11 December 1779) was a leading collector of antiquities in Rome and a commissioner of works of art.

We observed with awe the beautiful statue that adorned his italian villa in Rome representing a seated captive,the head covered with a phrygian cap made with a greek stone from Egypt.The polychromy of the statue is very interesting .

Seated captive.Rome Ist -IInd centuries.AD.Albani collection

Below are a few artefacts chosen by their beauty and the delicacy of their materials.

the beautiful Minerva from the cardinal Mazarin Collection made of red porphyry.(2nd century A.D)

Old Fisherman Vatican-Louvre, also known as the “Dying Seneca”. Statue: black marble and alabaster, (modern) basin: purple breccia, Roman copy of the 2nd century after a Hellenistic original. Found in Rome.

This statue had a great fame and is supposed to represent Seneca ,Nero’s tutor,forced to commit suicide.The great painter Rubens will make of it the main subject of his painting “Seneca dying”.

We had a crush on the greek bas-reliefs from the Borghèse collection .

Thétis.(marble.II nd century A.D)

So if you come to Paris and visit the Louvre don’t forget this very beautiful room .It’s certainly worthwhile!