Europe 2011: Part 4, Musée du Louvre

Next stop in Paris was visiting the Louvre.... but on the way I needed to take care of some stuff at the Apple Store. Yes, it's true... I can actually locate one anywhere I travel! I think this time I mostly just bought a battery charger. 

Now, I must say using these rechargeables in the the emergency battery charger I got off of Amazon works amazingly. Instead of getting 30% extra charge, I was finding myself reaching 60% or greater. 

Inside the Apple Store

Charging my phone outside of the Apple store

Anyhow, enough about batteries! On to the fun stuff...

They had this really impressive model of what the Louvre looked like during the medieval period 

Foundations for the Medieval Louvre

Notice the scale compared to people... it must have really been huge!

And of course, the Winged Victory of Samothrace

Stairs leading up to Winged Victory... lower level has sculptures, upper paintings

This time I paid special attention to the Regency/Empire paintings and I have a selection of them for you now...

I think this picture is in every book about men's fashion from the regency/empire period!

I love this painting... I may get a print of it for my home!

Again, Coronation of the Empress by Jacques-Louis David. Notice how large it is compared to the people. There is another copy of this painting at Versailles. I think this one here is the original.

This year I'm a huge fan of sheer materials... look at the sleeves!

I believe this is the last painting of the Empress Josephine before she passed away

Look at the exquisite detail of the material!

I'm also really impressed at this neckline's construction... whoever came up with that had to be a genius, because it doesn't look easy for it to work right.

Note the fashion of hand placements... there is a famous painting of Napoleon much like this

Nice regency style with cravat, etc.

I love the sheer again here... the construction of this is dress is so simple and delightfully elegant

This is a great musical portrait

I believe this is the dauphin, King Louis-Phillipe's son.

This man's outfit is intense... the amount of cravat and shirt frills is impressive!

I think this was for Napoleon III, but could be mistaken... what's interesting is that instead of carving the designs, they painted them in apparent 3 dimensions.

The Louvre Pyramid as seen from inside the museum

The usual republican piece... :P

I love this staircase! I will have a better view of it in the next post, which will have panoramic views of the Louvre

They have a little cafe up here... isn't this lovely?

Throne chair... I think for a temple, but I do not exactly remember

I love how they hid the outlets!

The fountains are surrounded by a bench and are a lovely place to sit and have conversations (particularly if you had someone to talk to)

And what it all looks like at night:

 Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go back again and reshoot some things I saw two years ago, but I plan to return in the near future! My next blog post will have panoramic shots of the Louvre that you can navigate on your computer. Stay tuned!