Friends

Friends

Before The Vision of Saint Françoise Romaine (Richelieu, room 826), I think once more of the day when my friend Marc Fumaroli brought me to the Louvre to admire this Poussin that had just entered the collections. It was at the very end of last century or the very beginning of this one. The Virgin Mary, who appears to Saint Françoise, has just saved Rome from the plague, represented by the broken arrows in the Virgin Mary’s hands and a villain chased away by an angel on the right, while a woman, a victim of the outbreak, lies near the bottom of the painting. Marc Fumaroli was proud of this last Poussin of the Louvre, acquired with the support of the Société des Amis du Louvre, founded in 1897, of which he was the president. So many works have entered the collections thanks to the Société des Amis du Louvre, from Baldovinetti’s Madonna and Child in 1898 (Denon, room 708) to the immense Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon attributed to Enguerrand Quarton, donated in 1905 (Richelieu, room 833), or Ingres’ The Turkish Bath, in 1911 (Sully, room 940). Not to mention innumerable drawings, prints, art objects, and ancient relics. See the Friends of the Louvre site: https://www.amisdulouvre.fr/