Paris as It Was and as It Is: A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The RevolutionBlagdon, Francis William
History
Paris as It Was and as It Is: A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The Revolution
Blagdon, Francis William
Paris (France) -- Description and travel
These different exhibitions are placed under the superintendance of a
board of management, or an administration, (as the French term it),
composed of a number of antiquaries, artists, and men of science,
inferior to none in Europe in skill, judgment, taste, or erudition.
The whole of this grand establishment bears the general title of
CENTRAL MUSEUM OF THE ARTS.
The treasures of painting and sculpture which the French nation have
acquired by the success of their arms, or by express conditions in
treaties of alliance or neutrality, are so immense as to enable them,
not only to render this CENTRAL MUSEUM the grandest collection of
master-pieces in the world, but also to establish fifteen
departmental Museums in fifteen of the principal towns of France.
This measure, evidently intended to favour the progress of the fine
arts, will case Paris of a great number of the pictures, statues, &c.
amassed here from different parts of France, Germany, Belgium,
Holland, Italy, Piedmont, Savoy, and the States of. Venice.
If you cast your eye on the annexed _Plan of Paris_, and suppose
yourself near the exterior south-west angle of the _Louvre_, or, as
it is more emphatically styled, the NATIONAL PALACE OF ARTS AND
SCIENCES, you will be in the right-hand corner of the _Place du Vieux
Louvre_, in which quarter is the present entrance to the CENTRAL
MUSEUM OF THE ARTS. Here, after passing through a court, you enter a
vestibule, on the left of which is the Hall of the Administration of
the Museum. On the ground-floor, facing the door of this vestibule,
is the entrance to the
GALLERY OF ANTIQUES.
In this gallery, which was, for the first time, opened to the public
on the 18th of Brumaire, year ix. of the French republic, (9th of
November 1800), are now distributed no less than one hundred and
forty-six statues, busts, and bas-reliefs. It consists of several
handsome apartments, bearing appropriate denominations, according to
the principal subjects which each contains. Six only are at present
completely arranged for public inspection: but many others are in a
state of preparation.
The greater part of the statues here exhibited, are the fruit of the
conquests of the army of Italy. Conformably to the treaty of
Tolentino, they were selected at Rome, from the Capitol and the
Vatican, by BARTHÉLEMY, BERTHOLET, MOITTE, MONGE, THOUIN, and TINET,
who were appointed, by the French government, commissioners for the
research of objects appertaining to the Arts and Sciences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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