In 2019, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, the Musée du Louvre invited Jean-Michel Othoniel to create a project establishing a dialogue between contemporary art and the museum’s historic collections.
From 25 May 2019 to 24 February 2020, Jean-Michel Othoniel at the Louvre presented La Rose du Louvre in the Cour Puget. The installation consisted of six ink paintings on gold leaf, displayed among 17th- and 18th-century garden sculptures.
We visited the exhibition during the years we lived in Paris and were particularly struck by the relationship the artist created between his contemporary visual language and the historic works surrounding it.
La rose du Louvre
Jean-Michel Othoniel and Rubens’ rose
For La Rose du Louvre, Othoniel drew inspiration from a detail in Peter Paul Rubens’ painting The Wedding by Proxy of Marie de’ Medici to King Henry IV, painted between 1621 and 1625.
The rose depicted by Rubens became, in Othoniel’s work, the Rose of the Louvre: an emblematic flower associated with beauty, passion and power.
Starting from this small detail in an Old Master painting, the artist developed a new contemporary image. The dialogue between past and present therefore became one of the most compelling aspects of the installation.
Displayed in the Cour Puget, the six contemporary works interacted with the historic sculptures without disrupting the character of the space. Instead, they created new visual relationships between painting, sculpture and architecture.
L’Herbier merveilleux and the flowers of the Louvre
The project also included the book L’Herbier merveilleux. Notes sur le sens caché des fleurs du Louvre, created by Jean-Michel Othoniel for the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid.
The artist explored the museum’s eight departments in search of flowers hidden in paintings, sculptures, drawings and decorative objects.
This research resulted in a distinctive herbarium devoted to the symbolic meanings of flowers in art, as well as to the stories and mythologies associated with them.
The project also had a personal significance for Othoniel. During his formative years, he had worked at the Louvre as a museum attendant, including night shifts. His return to the museum therefore represented a renewed encounter with a place closely connected to his youth and artistic education.
La Rose du Louvre in the museum collections
The story of La Rose du Louvre did not end when the exhibition closed.
In October 2019, the Musée du Louvre announced that the six works would enter its collections following a donation by the artist.
A project originally conceived for the 30th anniversary of the Pyramid thus acquired a permanent dimension, strengthening the dialogue between Jean-Michel Othoniel’s contemporary art and the historic collections of the Louvre.
Today, La Rose du Louvre forms part of the museum’s collections and remains a significant example of the relationship Othoniel has developed with one of the world’s most important art museums.
Contemporary Art in Paris
Jean-Michel Othoniel – La Rose du Louvre
Musée du Louvre – Cour Puget, Paris
25 May 2019 – 24 February 2020
Installation comprising six ink paintings on gold leaf inspired by the rose depicted by Rubens in The Wedding by Proxy of Marie de’ Medici to King Henry IV.