“I told you you had to book”, exclaims Lauraine Faux, while her friend Antoine Fauquet is looking for the Instagram post where he saw the announcement of the Louvre night show. “It is still quite humiliating to say that we are denied nightclubs and then a museum“, replied a friend, Paul Medina, smirking.
The Leonardo da Vinci exhibition has nothing to envy to the trendy Parisian clubs in terms of attendance. While the museum is organizing his first nights from 9 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. for the end of the exhibition which opened on October 24, 30,000 places were reserved from the evening of 21 until the morning of February 24. In just three hours, all tickets had gone to the website.
For the Tadjouri family, the perfect conditions are met to see this unique exhibition: timetables, free, but especially the atmosphere that the museum offers at night. “The atmosphere is hushed, quite special. It’s exclusive“, describes the mother, Cherifa, eyes sparkling in front of” The Battle of Anghiari “.
In the early evening, the crowd is very varied. The more the hours advance, the more the little ones and the elders will go to bed to make room for the young night owls, like on a bistro terrace.
“Like at home”
Except that instead of a pint, visitors drink tea and coffee accompanied by madeleines: a little sweetness included in the visit.
“What we wanted to do in this exhibition is to welcome the public“, says Louvre president Jean-Luc Martinez. One way to make people feel”like at home“, he adds.
In the large hall, 32-year-old Odile Poitier tastes her cup while sharing her feelings after two hours visit. Accompanied by her brother and her best friends, she managed to get six narrow spots. “It is true that sometimes after the exhibitions we rather want to go home, while there we can chat, we are not pressed for time, we are more relaxed“, she is delighted.
It is under the luminous structure of the pyramid which takes shape in the dark sky that the magic operates. In the showroom, night and day, the rooms are crowded.
Despite everything, Jinhui Xu, Panni Lorin and Cora Yuan, three young Chinese workers in Paris, loved their experience. “It’s very well organized “, says Cora, who works in the luxury industry in Paris. “We were able to see all the works up close”, she adds.
The night promises to be still long for the 40 agents mobilized to operate the museum. “Relous people arrive from four in the morning“said the security team leader, Rafik Boussa.
For the moment, he only notices good humor. “People are nice. As long as they’re cool, we’re cool”, he said welcoming people paying attention to the schedule on their ticket, a system in place to avoid being too crowded at the same time.
The exhibition includes 162 works brought together after ten years of titanic work and loan requests around the world, from the Queen of England who loaned 24 drawings, from the British Museum, the Vatican and Italy in particular.
After negotiations between countries and between museums, Rome agreed to lend several drawings including the famous “Vitruvian Man”, fragile work kept at the Gallery of the Academy in Venice.
Only eleven of the twenty or so paintings attributed to the master are on display. But they are highlighted by the rest of the works that surround them and help explain their genesis.
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