Louvre Museum

We spent most of the day at the Louvre. Students had a choice of taking a "greatest hits of nineteenth-century French painting" tour or striking out on their own.

We met at noontime for lunch. We had planned to dine at a cafe inside the museum, but the line was long and the servers would only seat us two at a time as tables in a certain section became available. Instead we headed to the Paul sandwich cart near the Arc du Carrousel, at the beginning of the Tuileries Gardens.

In the early afternoon we had an appointment with Carel van Tuyll van Serooskerken, the Louvre's curator of prints and drawings. He oversees a collection of more than 150,000 images, and he is also the first non-French department head ever hired by the museum.



Dr. van Tuyll devoted an hour of his time to show us a number of drawings. Following the nineteenth-century theme, he focused mainly on David, Delacroix, and Géricault. He discussed the growing scholarly emphasis on drawings as a way to study an artist's thought processes. He also showed us some watercolors from the period around 1820, when French artists "discovered" the English watercolor tradition.

It was a fascinating presentation. Unfortunately photos aren't permitted in that part of the museum. The department's study room is a huge chamber, intended by Napoleon III to be part of a grand staircase for receiving visitors. The walls and ceiling are decorated with relief sculptures and beautiful paintings. An accurate description for this room's decoration would be "over the top." It was quite a contrast from the rest of the museum, with thousands of visitors milling around.

The students had the rest of the afternoon to explore the museum on their own. Once again it was hot and sunny today.

This evening we gathered for a farewell dinner. The food was great, and we followed that with a visit to the top of Montparnasse Tower. From 209 meters above ground, you can see for many miles. We waited for the Eiffel Tower to sparkle at 11:00 p.m. before heading back to the hotel.

Overall the trip has been a big success. Everyone seems reluctant to leave Paris!