The Louvre Museum and the L’Oréal Groupe’s exhibition “Of All Beauties” opens on November 13th. It is a guided journey that allows visitors to explore over 10,000 years of art and history through a signposted collection of 108 selected works.
From tomorrow, all visitors to the Louvre will be invited to explore over 10,000 years of art and history by discovering beauty gestures, rituals and practices; the canons or idealised visions of beauty; and what questions and opinions on appearance and beauty reveal about societies and their transformations.
The three key themes punctuate a unique, one-of-a-kind visit created by the Louvre with the collaboration of the L’Oréal Groupe Art, Culture & Heritage Department. The aim is to share the story of beauty throughout history with the widest possible audience, from prehistory to the future.
For a more immersive experience, visitors will be accompanied by a specially designed web application accessible via a QR code. Through this application, which contains written and audio materials to complement the museum’s existing signage, the works and objects will tell their unique stories in the first person.
HERMAPHRODITE ENDORMI, 100-150 AEC, Anonyme, Italie, marbre. Photo by Nicolas Romieu / Courtesy of L’Oréal.
For example, visitors will be able to hear from Nefatiabet, whose beauty products were so precious that they accompanied her to the afterlife; examine the beauty ideals of Ancient Greece with the statue of Mercure Richelieu, or even discover the ‘Sleeping Hermaphrodite’ and explore the concept of gender.
The application, which is available remotely, will allow visitors to continue their journey of discovery outside the museum galleries.
[LtoR] LA FEMME AU MIROIR, 1525-1550, Titien, Italie, huile sur toile. Photo by Nicolas Romieu / Courtesy of L’Oréal and MADELEINE, 1800, Benoist, France, huile sur toile. Photo by Nicolas Romieu / Courtesy of L’Oréal.
Laurence des Cars, President and Director of the Louvre Museum, says, “This unique journey, born from a fruitful dialogue with the L’Oréal teams, invites visitors to experience the Louvre’s collections in a new light. Together, we designed a journey that highlights the vast diversity of beauty across eras and cultures. Through this playful and accessible approach to the artworks, the Louvre affirms its role as a school of seeing, multiplying the paths of discovery to share its heritage ever more widely and generously.”
Nicolas Hieronimus, CEO of L’Oréal Groupe, said, “At the heart of our purpose, ‘to create the beauty that moves the world’, lies the desire to make beauty accessible to all and tell the story of beauty’s diverse and enduring role since the dawn of time. This is what has driven us to explore new partnership opportunities and approaches. The Louvre was the obvious choice for this partnership, given the richness and diversity of its collections and its ability to shed light on even the most contemporary of questions.”
Piece by piece, this unprecedented partnership between L’Oréal and the Louvre helps to shine new perspectives on the diversity of beauty by encouraging inclusion and tolerance across cultures, civilisations and eras.
TETE PRINCIERE, 1185-1215, Anonyme, Iran, stuc. Photo by Nicolas Romieu / Courtesy of L’Oréal.
This new program has been specifically designed to reach a new and younger generation. In addition to the in-museum experience, a web series co-produced by the Louvre and L’Oréal will be broadcast at the beginning of 2025. It will allow people to discover some of the most iconic works from this curated collection through the eyes of a group of young visitors.
Since its founding 115 years ago, the L’Oréal Groupe has continuously explored beauty in all its forms and contributed to democratising access to beauty in an inclusive, personalised, and sustainable way.
The Louvre, the first museum to open its doors to the public in 1793, is a place of inspiration and knowledge-sharing that invites artists, historians and scientists to connect with the widest possible audience. It’s a place where the exploration of the past clearly resonates with the most contemporary questions.
Lead image: PRINCESSE DE LA MAISON D’ESTE, 1425-1450 Pisanello, Italie, huile sur bois.
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