Art from México at the Louvre: Masterpieces from the 17th and 18th Centuries
The Louvre presents until June 7 of this year an exhibition of important Mexican artworks, a subject of particular interest for the museum as it plans to expand a Latin American art collection that presently consists, of a 1680 work by Mexican José Sánchez entitled La Visita (The Visit), donated to the museum by a French collector in 2004. Several Mexican collections and museums, like the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, lent the works for this exhibition and contributed to its organization free of charge. Fomento Cultural Banamex backed the inclusion of other works by José Sánchez in the group of works sent to France.
Guillaume Kientz, from the Musée du Louvre and one of the organizers of this exhibition—alongside Jonathan Brown, from the New York Institute of Fine Arts—affirms that, although Mexican painting has an important presence in the international market, the criteria that the museum has been following limits the acquisition of works from a specific country to no more than 3 or 4 relevant works that can represent an entire period. Therefore the museum must be highly selective when deciding which works to acquire. Nonetheless, this time around the museum intents that most of the works shown in this exhibition become part of its collection.
Art from México at the Louvre: Masterpieces from the 17th and 18th Centuries consists of a selection of works authored by a dozen Mexican artists that will be exhibited alongside Spanish paintings from the same period—property of the Louvre's permanent collection—with the objective of establishing parallels between the two "sister schools." As an introduction to visitors interested in the painting from the New World, the museum will present during this period monumental works by José Juárez, dynamic baroque paintings by Cristóbal Villalpando, and delicate and subtle works by Rodríguez Juárez and Miguel Cabrera; images that will open the doors to a new understanding of the relationship between their relationship with the Old Continent through the marked legacy of Spanish and Dutch techniques and themes that migrated to the new colonies in America.
This exhibition underscores the strengthening of the relationship between the governments of Mexico and France, following the cancellation by Nicolas Sarkozy of more than 360 events scheduled to be part of the "Year of Mexico in France" in 2011. The then President Sarkozy decided to call off the events to protest Mexico's decision to incarcerate French citizen Florence Cassez, who was charged with the crimes of kidnapping, organized crime, and illegal possession of firearms—as she was allegedly a member of the Los Zodiaco criminal group—and was sentenced to 60 years in prison in 2007. Cassez repeatedly denied all charges until she was freed at the end of January of 2013, after the Supreme Court of Mexico ruled in her favor, in response to a plea that claimed human rights abuses against her.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book-catalog jointly created by the Musée du Louvre and the French National Institute of Art of France (the BAILA project). The publication offers a panoramic view of the Latin American works that are the property of French museums. It particularly explores the origin and evolution of the school from the 17th and 18th Centuries.
