The new Louvre Lens museum is on target to open in December 2012 and plans are gearing up for a grand opening.
The Louvre Museum in Paris has announced that 205 works of art will be loaned to the Louvre Lens for a period of five years. The works will be featured in the Gallery of Time, a 2000 m² single gallery which aims to illustrate human and artistic development through the paths of time. A tablet from Mesopotamia marking the beginnings of writing from 3500 BC will be the oldest work on show and the newest work in the Gallery of Time will be by Eugène Delacroix - La Liberté Guidant le Peuple, his famous painting from 1830 of a bare breasted woman leading a charge and holding the tricolour flag.
One wing of the Louvre Lens will be devoted to temporary exhibitions lasting around three months and the inaugural exhibition will focus on the Renaissance featuring the painting of “St. Anne”, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne by Leonardo da Vinci, which has recently undergone restoration work and is currently on show at the Louvre Paris.
Other wings of the Louvre Lens will showcase works from museums in the region Nord Pas-de-Calais and from galleries and museums around the world.
Entrance to the Gallery of Time will be free for the first year of the museum’s opening.
