La Joconde

17 years after last setting foot in the Musée du Louvre I was back again today. I've been in Paris on business since Sunday, working from 8am until late evening. This afternoon I found myself with a few spare hours after such a hectic schedule. I decided to treat myself and a staff member to an afternoon tour of the Louvre's more famous highlights.

Forget the art, the Louvre is a destination all of its own. Originally a Royal Palace, it first opened to the public as a museum in 1793. French royalty lived in style. Each gallery, stairway and grand, sunlit hallway is an exquisite masterpiece of decoration and architecture. Many of the rooms have painted and gilded ceilings, progressively completed over the course of several hundred years.

The Louvre's most recent addition is the Pyramid, an enormous glass structure in the central courtyard that opened in 1989. Designed by Chinese architect Ioeh Ming Pei, the Pyramid serves as the main entrance for visitors.


Today we were in luck. There was no queues waiting to enter. Within minutes we found ourselves wandering the halls. Over the next few hours we feasted on original Egyptian artifacts, Mesopotamian antiquities, Italian sculptures and Italian paintings. We found time for most of the Louvre's most popular items including The Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus de Milo, Canova's Psyche and Cupid, Michelangelo's The Dying Slave and of course, La Joconde, more commonly known as Mona Lisa.


We also encountered several surprising works of art including an ensemble of white statues standing on a stairway in Cour Puget, an enormous glass-enclosed courtyard. Each statue held a simple clock set to the correct time. Very surreal. I was equally dumb-struck by tiled walls from the Palace of Sargon II and sheer scale of the giant bull capitals that decorated the Apadena (audience chamber) of Darius' palace at Susa.

However, the most memorable moment came as we entered the Salle des États. To our surprise the Mona Lisa stood alone in the centre of the room. We stood in front of her for several uninterrupted minutes, marvelling at both Leonardo's masterpiece and the tranquility surrounding us. We agreed that she was indeed smiling. Of course it couldn't last. As we turned to view Veronese' floor to ceiling painting of The Wedding Feast at Cana, an unruly horde of backpackers swarmed into the room. The Louvre is a magic place.


The Louvre wasn't my only art experience this week. On Wednesday afternoon we dashed down the the dusty paths of Jardin des Tuileries to the Musée de l'Orangeries des Tuileries. Here Monet's enormous water lily panoramas are on display in two simple, naturally-lit oval rooms. It was wonderful to sit for several minutes and simply absorb the peace and serenity on offer. Paris is a magical city.

Place Vendôme's central column clad in spiralling bas-relief bronze plates