The Louvre’s Leonardo da Vinci Extravaganza Brought in Nearly 1.1 Million Visitors, Shattering Previous Attendance Records

Five hundred years later and
Leo’s still got it. 

The Louvre’s headline-making
“Leonardo da Vinci” exhibition, which marked the 500th anniversary
of the Renaissance master’s death, closed its four-month run this
week with a record-breaking figure: in total, 1,071,840 visitors traveled from around the
world to marvel at the unprecedented retrospective.

The outstanding attendance
figures shattered the Louvre’s previous record of 540,000 visitors,
which was established for an exhibition of Eugène Delacroix in 2018. Daily attendance numbers for the
Leonardo show hovered at nearly 10,000 people.

The figures were bolstered by the
museum’s addition of 46 evening openings, allowing visits to see
the show until 10 p.m. Museum membership grew by over 10 percent over the
course of the exhibition.  

“It’s wonderful that 500 years after his death,
an Italian Renaissance artist continues to fascinate the general
public so much,” Jean-Luc Martinez, president and director of
the Louvre museum, said in a statement.

“Today, I have two reasons for
pride: the success of bringing together the greatest number of
Leonardo’s works and in welcoming so many and such diverse
audiences.” 

Highlights of the exhibition
included five of the museum’s own paintings,
including Saint Jean
Baptiste, Virgin
of the Rocks, and
the Mona Lisa (which remained in its usual
location) along with
four borrowed paintings: Benois Madonna, the La Scapiliata, St
Jerome,
and Portrait of a Musician.

Conspicuously absent was
Salvator Mundi, which became the most expensive work of
art ever purchased when it sold at Christie’s for
$450 million in 2017 and has since
become the subject of much scholarly conjecture. 

The past few months have been
eventful for the Louvre.

Back in January, the museum was forced to shut down for
a day as yellow-vest
demonstrators blocked its entrance. The institution has also
recently drawn scrutiny for its relationship to the Sackler
family and has struggled with issues of overcrowding. When the
Mona Lisa was temporarily moved to a new location in
the museum during the summer of 2019, chaos
ensued. 

Still, such woes did nothing to
stymie the tide of a public eager to see Leonardo.

During the last three days of the
exhibition, the demand was such that the museum kept its doors open
for nearly 81 hours straight, offering free admission, coffee, and
madeleines.

The red-eye strategy allowed an
additional 30,000 visitors to see the show in its final days. But
even then, some art lovers were still shut out after the final
timed tickets were snapped up in under three
hours. 

Perhaps as a comfort to these
disappointed Leonardo fans, the Louvre has announced that it will
be releasing a film focusing on the exhibition,
titled A Night at the
Louvre: Leonardo da Vinci, later this year. 

The post The Louvre’s Leonardo da Vinci Extravaganza Brought
in Nearly 1.1 Million Visitors, Shattering Previous Attendance
Records appeared first on artnet News.