A visit to the Louvre in 1861 – and an inside view
This type of descriptive painting does not usually attract my attention, the genre of so-called painting-within-a-painting. But I was struck by the wonderful details such as several apprentice artists at work on easels, copying masterpieces in the museum (which still happens), along with the old-fashioned way of sumptuously crowding the walls from top to bottom (‘The Wedding Feast at Cana’ depicted here now has its own wall in the Salle des États, facing ‘Mona Lisa’), and also by the charming elegance of the Parisian attire (and some exotic foreign tourists!) in 1861: even the guardians are fully dressed with elegant three-pointed hats.
The author of this painting, Giuseppe Castiglione attempts to create a true three dimensional effect here which stands out to the eye for example in the details of the gilded frames and the stucco ceiling decorations. The room depicted here (le Salon Carré) is now completely different, a vast and well-lit passageway to the Grand Gallery, but does now house my favorite painting of all, ‘The Coronation of the Virgin’ by Fra Angelico