Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci’s idealized portrait of Isabella d'Este, made between December 1499 and March 1500, does not go on public display frequently. The painting is no longer robust enough to regularly hang on the walls of the Louvre in Paris, where it is protected. It is taken out only for special events.
This was most recently the case for a large show of Da Vinci works on the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance painter's death, a show that ended shortly before the initial spread of the coronavirus in Europe in March 2020.
Since then, the profile portrait has disappeared again into the archives of the Louvre under the appropriate conservation conditions.
The Louvre is putting all its treasures online for everyone to see, interim president Jean-Luc Martinez announced in April.
For the first time, all the works kept by the Louvre can be accessed free of charge, whether they are on display at the museum, on loan or in storage, Martinez said, launching the museum's collections.louvre.fr platform.
The Louvre has made 75% of its massive holdings accessible, with the rest set to follow by 2023.
The art fund is divided according to categories such as painting, sculpture and art objects. It is also divided into art schools and the various Louvre departments, such as antiquities from the Middle East. You can also search for individual artists.
Search for Leonardo da Vinci, and you'll find 242 references. If you narrow the selection to his paintings, you'll still find 11 entries.
That's an impressive number, given that experts have attributed only 20 to 22 paintings to the Italian master. The artist and scholar also left behind numerous notes, sketches, scientific treatises and drawings, many of which are also in the Louvre.
Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" is, of course, among the top hits. There are several special entries on the star of the Louvre – which was visited by an average of 20,000 people daily before the museum closed its halls during the pandemic.
The Louvre is not only allowing anyone with an internet connection to see its collection, but also giving rich background on all its works.
Look up the dramatic "Elevation of the Cross" triptych by Peter Paul Rubens, and you learn that was once looted and brought to Munich before arriving at the Louvre in 1950.
The painting, in which the body of Christ lies stretched out on a cross raised at an angle, is listed in the collection under the inventory number MNR 411.
MNR stands for a register consisting of works that were once confiscated by the Nazis or whose owner was persecuted and forced to sell the work.
The Rubens painting is not the only work designated as "MNR." There are currently 1,731 such entries in the Louvre database. France's museums nationwide count more than 2,000 paintings, drawings, furniture and art objects that were entrusted to these institutions for safekeeping after World War II, with the mission of finding their rightful owners.
Online access to the collections is a means of democratizing art, Martinez explained. The museum launched its platform on March 26. Just five days later, it is said to have attracted up to four times as many visitors as the traditional website, explained Anne-Myrtille Renoux, the project manager.
In 2020, for much of which the Louvre remained closed, the museum's website louvre.fr counted around 21 million internet users.
