Paintings in the Louvre [Hardcover]

Lawrence Gowing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1994

120 essays by a distinguished art historian represent a guided tour of more than eight hundred European masterpieces from the art collection of the world-famous Louvre.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Though many cities boast impressive art collections, Paris's Louvre is the art museum, and this 1987 title gathers more than 800 of its most famous items spanning 500 years of European art. LJ's reviewer found Gowing's text slightly prejudiced (LJ 1/88), but the hundreds of illustrations are simply stunning. As its original incarnation sold for $85, even at $50 this is a good buy.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 688 pages
• Publisher: Stewart, Tabori and Chang; First U.S. Edition edition (July 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556700075
• ISBN-13: 978-1556700071
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 10 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST HAVE REFERENCE FOR LOVERS OF FINE PAINTINGS!, March 19, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paintings in the Louvre (Hardcover)

After visiting the Louvre on two occassions we wanted a good reference book to place on our coffee table. This book is the best on the market! The profusely detailed colored photos throughout are nothing less than superior quality. The history of each painting is explained and a lot of information about the artist, their life, and style is also discussed in great detail. This is NOT a small book. It has proven to be invaluable in researching various art works. If you cannot make a trip to Paris to visit the Louvre in person, this book is mandated. Unfortunately, I bought the book at the Louvre and paid SIGNIFICANTLY more! Don't make the same mistake I did. I can honestly say, this book is a family favorite and I have several.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paintings In the Louvre, July 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Paintings in the Louvre (Hardcover)

Unparalleled in its breadth and scope, and unique in the quality of its sumptuous color reproductions, "Paintings In the Louvre" is THE BEST, the most lavish and comprehensive book ever published on the greatest collection of paintings in the world - in the Louvre Museum, in Paris. If you really like beautiful, fine European art, then this oversized, weighty, hard-back book is the book for you! Crisp, clear, beautiful full-color reproductions of more than 800 of the most important paintings that hang in the Louvre, this book is especially wonderful in that a good portion of this book is some of the most striking Christian art in the world....

BTW, if you visit the Louvre, you will need one entire day just to see all of the magnificent paintings (carry a MEDIUM-SMALL rucksack with food and water and take a break(s) outside - at the refreshing and beautiful huge fountains). To see all of the over 300,000 "objects d' art" at the Louvre (with 12 miles of corridors on four massive floors!), then plan on spending a minimum of one-and-a-half to two days there! Bring lots of film, and if you have an automatic zoom camera, be sure to get the relatively new special "zoom" camera film made by ...

ENJOY!

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice book, but be sure of the publication date, September 27, 2009

By 

lawbabie (Arlington VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Paintings in the Louvre (Hardcover)

I ordered this book and the very recent volume 1001 Paintings in the Louvre, and have had a hard time choosing my favorite between the volumes, as both have their advantages: this one has a cleaner layout, with fewer paintings to each page and many more instances of paintings filling an entire page, whereas the other book more often has many pictures on a single page, which can seem cluttered. I also like that this book has the entire Marie de Medici series from Rubens, with descriptions of the subject matter of each painting in the cycle, whereas the 1001 Paintings book has only one or two from that series. And I like that it focuses entirely on European paintings, rather than trying to also cover decorative and ancient arts in a single volume, as does the other book.

One downside of this book is that it omits a painting that I quite fell in love with at the Louvre, Ary Scheffer's - "The Ghosts of Paolo and Francesca Appear to Dante and Virgil." Also, being an American, I find this book's descriptions of image sizes in inches to be more immediate and useable than the descriptions in centimeters in the other book, but that's a minor point.

But my main concern is that this book as it arrived had a publication date of 1987, not 1994 as in the Amazon description, and it seemed the pages were beginning to yellow on the edges. Although most of the Louvre's core collection has not changed of course in the last two decades, there have been acquisitions, and so a more recent volume is more likely to be more representative of the collection. Also the images in this book overall seem to have a yellow cast in many instances, whereas the colors in the 1001 Paintings book seemed brighter and more faithful to the images as I remember seeing them in the Louvre a couple of weeks ago.

But this is a gorgeous volume and if you get it at a good price will be well loved in any art collection.