Pendants

Pendants

Another race through the museum as in Bande à Part. Today, I’d like to see at a single glance the two languorous Fragonards that make a pair, The Raised Chemise (Sully, room 930) and Fire to the Powder Keg (Denon, room 714), scenes that would have scandalized Louise Villedieu, the “five-franc whore” Baudelaire once brought to the Louvre. But the two little paintings are hung on different floors at opposite sides of the museum. To go from one to the other is quite a hike, but worth the detour. It’s because the first belonged to Dr La Caze, and the second to Carlos de Beistegui, two of the Louvre’s most generous donors. Dr La Caze’s collection has been scattered. But the Beistegui collection, having frequently moved, now stands next to the British paintings, where it combines its works by Rubens, David, Delacroix, Meissonnier, and others with its prodigious Goya: the portrait commissioned by the Condesa del Carpio, Marquesa de la Solana, shortly before her death, to leave an image for her loved ones. Next to Fragonard’s lavish creatures, Goya’s countess, sickly beneath her black dress, mantilla, and white gloves, nevertheless displays a touch of pink: the big ribbon rosette in her hair that makes her face look smaller.