Louvre exhibit opens in Quebec

QUEBEC CITY (AFP) The Louvre museum on Thursday opened an exhibit in Quebec City of some of its greatest treasures for the city's 400th anniversary, with rare European and Islamic artifacts from its Paris hub.

It is the first and probably the last time so many pieces from the museum's Islamic Art collection, dating back 13 centuries, are being displayed outside of France, say curators.

As well, the Quebec exhibit blends antiquities from all eight of its curatorial departments in a test of presentation that could lead to a redesign of Louvre exhibits in the future.

"It's very emotional," bellowed John Porter, director of the Quebec Museum of Fine Arts, who worked for five years with Louvre staff on this exhibit for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City by French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1608. The Louvre lent the Quebec museum 270 artifacts for the exhibit, which opened Thursday, grouping them under broad themes such as "Love and Death," "Fun and Entertainment" and "Education and Work," instead of its traditional departmentalizing of Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman antiquities, paintings, and so on.

"We have in this hall, for example, a Greek funerary stele next to a Roman sarcophagus. At the Louvre, one would be found in the Roman department and the other in the Greek section," commented Genevieve Bresc, a Louvre curator.

The Quebec museum is presenting them together in a different light to stress their commonalities and what binds us all, she said.

The Louvre has often lent out parts of its vast collection to museums around the world, but this is the first time all of its eight curatorial departments have collaborated on a single exhibit. "This exhibit is indeed an experiment on how to work together, because for a long time Louvre departments were cloistered and inward focused," explained Henri Loyrette, president of the Louvre.

"We wanted to mix things up," he said, noting that the Quebec experiment would serve as a model for a new Louvre annex to open in Lens in the northern Pas-de-Calais region of France, in 2010. Diplayed here, Valentin de Boulogne's 1622-25 painting "Concert au bas-relief" shows a stone table decorated with carvings. Next to it, curators set up an actual marble relief "The Borghese Dancers," dated 130 years B.C.

Another hall dedicated to "Life and Beauty" showcases an ancient Egyptian head rest, 5,300-year-old Iranian vases, ceramics from the Ottoman Empire and a French tapestry from the Middle Ages.

The Louvre also agreed to loan the Quebec museum several of its Islamic artworks that "don't usually travel" but were released for this occasion because its Department of Islamic Art is closed temporarily while it awaits the opening of a new home in the Cour Visconti in 2010. The artifacts include one of the most celebrated examples of Islamic metalwork from the medieval period, the "Barberini Vase," thought to have been part of the collection of the pope Urban VIII, who died in 1644.

Its inscription suggests the vase was made for the Ayyubid sultan of Alep, SalGh al-Din Yusvf, who reigned from 1237-60. "We'll likely never again lend out so many Islamic artifacts as are being exhibited here," said Bresc. "We might lend out one of the 10 pieces from Iran exhibited here, but never all 10." The exhibition runs to October 26.