A Closer Look

Forget the clichés and look at the painting. In the early 16th century, Mona Lisa represented a turning point in the history of portraiture. Leonardo da Vinci linked the monumentality of a figure before a landscape with a virtuoso rendering of flesh tones. Discover the secret behind the smile...

A peerless masterpiece of Greek sculpture, the Winged Victory of Samothrace standing on the prow of a ship overlooked the sanctuary of the Great Gods on the island of Samothrace. The monument was probably a votive offering dedicated in commemoration of a naval victory.

This multimedia feature was produced with the support of Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière (Fimalac), who has been a patron of the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities since 1995.

Painted in bright colors and gazing expressively at the visitor, the Seated Scribe is one of the most famous statues in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities. Egyptologists think it is probably the portrait of a high-ranking Egyptian official living at the time of the great pyramids, yet its date and the exact identity of the model still remain a mystery. Find out more through this interactive multimedia study.

Learn about the most famous object from the history of the Ancient Near East, and through it, the political, social, and cultural history of the reign of Hammurabi, the ruler who turned Babylon into a powerful – and eternal – city.

In the Michelangelo Gallery at the Louvre, the visitors crowd around this idyllic image of a loving couple: a winged man and a swooning woman in a voluptuous embrace, their lips about to join in a kiss. Who are these beings whom eighteenth-century sculptor Canova chose to immortalize in marble? This multimedia feature invites you to take a closer look at this masterful composition as you listen to the story of Psyche and admire Canova’s virtuoso treatment of the marble.