The Louvre-Lens has committed to restoring a Charles Le Brun work that had been missing for over 200 years, and which was discovered with so much dirt and grime on its surface that it was almost unrecognizable.  “This was a hugely successful painting,” says Nicolas Milovanovic, the chief curator in the Paris museum’s paintings department. “When [the art collector and chief minister of France] Cardinal Mazarin saw it, he wanted a copy. A third version was made for Anne of Austria. We know [there are] around ten other versions. It was a painting that pleased many people.” (more…)

The Louvre will inaugurate its new branch in Lens, northern France, with several important paintings such as Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Raphael’s Baldassare Castiglione, Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. The project opens to the public on December 12th, 2012 and cost $194 million. It was generated from an idea to spark both economic and cultural development in the region. (more…)