Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Travel Tuesday: Mom's 1953 Europe Road Trip: At the Louvre

From Mom's Europe trip diary, in the "PLACES VISITED" section: 
October 21, Wednesday – Paris, France
Went to Louvre - saw Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and several more famous paintings.  After lunch at Rumplemayer's, went shopping again.  Bought some white gloves,*  exchanged Bobbie Nell's** Arpege for larger bottle, and bought Fred** some champagne.*  For dinner Joye** and Sylvia** treated me to champagne, because of my birthday.**  Managed to get most of my packing done, thank goodness.

* According to the "PURCHASES" section of the trip diary, my mother bought the white gloves at Fabrique de Ganto for 2900 francs, and the champagne at Gargantua for 1700 francs for both bottles.  She also purchased 8 hors d'oeuvre knives (for 2440 francs), a salad set (for 950 francs), and an hors d'oeuvre fork (for 300 francs), all at Jacques Franch.

** Bobbie Nell is my mother's step-first cousin, Bobbie Nell Brown.  Fred is my dad, Fred Pape, who Mom was dating at the time of this trip.  Joye and Sylvia are her traveling companions, her co-worker Sylvia John and Sylvia's friend Joye Murphy.  Mom's 25th birthday was two days before, on October 19.  

Paris - Carrousel and Louvre [2 August 1968, cropped] / Roger Wollstadt / CC BY-SA 2.0
Paris - Louvre - Winged Victory [11 May 1960, cropped]  / Roger Wollstadt / CC BY-SA 2.0

Mona Lisa, Louvre / Leonardo da Vinci [photo by Dcoetzee, 8 June 2011] / Public domain
The entrance to the Louvre might have looked something like the photo above in 1953.  L'Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel was built by Napoleon in 1806-1808, modeled after the Arch of Constantine in Rome. The bulldings of the Louvre (the part that had been the royal palace) are in the background. This was taken long before today's glass pyramid entrance was constructed.

The three most famous art works in the Louvre (at least back in the 1950s and 1960s) were the ones my mother saw.

One (of course) is da Vinci's Mona Lisa, pictured below.  The Winged Victory of Samothrace, pictured at left, was sculpted in Greece circa 190 B.C. 
Venus de Milo, Louvre [16 January 2009] / Sailko / GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-2.5
The Venus de Milo , pictured at left, was sculpted in Greece sometime between 130 and 100 B.C., and discovered in 1820 A. D.



This is the 75th in a series of posts transcribing entries in my mother's 1953 Europe Trip journal.



© Amanda Pape - 2014 - click here to e-mail me.

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