The Galerie du temps at the Louvre-Lens (Pas-de-Calais), where more than 200 works are exhibited free of charge, will be completely renewed at the end of the year, a first since the opening of the museum in 2012, its company announced on Tuesday. new director Annabelle Ténèze.
This gallery will experience an “
almost complete renewal of its works
”, with the exception of “
one or two favorites that we are keeping
”, announced Ms. Ténèze, director of the Louvre-Lens since September 2023, during a press conference.
In its new version, the Galerie du temps will have as its flagship work
The Four Seasons
, a series of four paintings painted in the 16th century by the Milanese Giuseppe Arcimboldo, known for his portraits made up of assemblages of plants, animals or various objects .
He will stay at the Louvre-Lens “
two or three years
”, specified Laurence des Cars, president and director of the Louvre museum.
Also read: La Dentellière by Vermeer will join the Louvre-Lens for a year
Works from various continents and centuries
This will be the “
first complete renewal of the works
” of the Galerie du temps, underlined Annabelle Ténèze, after “
250 rotations of works in ten years
” done until then gradually and therefore “
not always spectacularly visible
”.
The Galerie du temps will close on September 25 and will reopen once renewed in December, “
for Sainte-Barbe
”, a miners’ day celebrated on December 4, said Laurence des Cars.
The new selection, like the current one, will mix in this vast 3000 m2 room works from various continents and centuries, a diversity which “
allows us to cross civilizations
”, recalls Annabelle Ténèze.
Among these works, in addition to Arcimboldo's paintings, will include a portrait signed Francisco de Goya, dating from 1791, a triptych dating from the end of the 14th century retracing the life of the Virgin, and a "
panel with facing peacocks
", a work Iranian from the 16th century.
“
This renewal is accompanied by a scenographic renewal
,” indicated Ms. Ténèze, with within the future Gallery “
a river of time, that is to say a curved and moving river which will (...) connect the works together
.
After the loans in 2022 of The Crouching Scribe, a masterpiece from the department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre, and since June 2023 for a period of one year of “
The Lacemaker
” by Vermeer, “
there will be other surprises
” in the coming months, promised Laurence Des Cars.