Louvre Paris great museums of the world

To tour the Louvre perhaps the most encyclopedic of museums is to witness the unfolding of art history from prehistoric times to the 20th century. And this book, with its 131 great works of art (all newly photographed, all reproduced in full color), opens to the reader the heart of the Louvre offering, in company with the Museum’s directors, a superb guided tour of its great collections of painting and sculpture.
In this book is the Louvre itself. Here, together with such renowned symbols as the mona lisa and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, are scores of masterpieces far less familiar, that startle by their freshness as well as their beauty each accompanied by an historical and interpretive commentary. The works included reflect all the splendor and scope of the collections from the arts of ancient egypt and mesopotamia, with their basic symbols of Life and Death, to the statues and friezes of greek and roman cultures; from the idols and deities of biblical asia and the mosaics of Byzantium to the masterworks of the great italian, Flemish, german and spanish schools.
Here are the breathtaking masterpieces van der Weyden’s Annunciation, Hieronymus Bosch’s Ship of Fools. Vermeer’s Lace Maker works of Lucas Cranach, El Greco, Rembrandt, and the great Rubens celebration of Marie de Medici’s arrival in France. Here, too, Giorgione’s sublime Concert. Titian’s Entombment of Christ. Veronese’s sumptuous Wedding at Cana.