With Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, Curator of Sculpture at Le Musée du Louvre

Museums and art galleries are, by definition, repositories of outstanding artworks. But which one do curators hold out as the best of their kind, and why? What is, really, a masterpiece?

World-renown expert Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre will stop in Chicago on her way back to Paris, where she just put the “The Louvre and the Masterpiece” exhibition under wrap. A small fire closed the 18th century Decorative Arts rooms in Le Musée du Louvre five years ago, launching a traveling exhibition to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Minneapolis Art Institute during the renovation. Vermeer’s Astronomer had never been to North America before.

Madame Lemaistre will talk at the Alliance Française about the definition of a “masterpiece” and examine how taste and connoisseurship have changed over time.
This talk will be followed by a vin d’honneur and a book signing session where the exhibition’s catalogue will be available.

For more information or to purchase tickets, call the Alliance Française at (312) 337 1070 or http://www.af-chicago.org/app/Calendar.asp?event=541&type=0