Elaine Sciolino Brings the Louvre to Life

As a subject, the Louvre is seemingly inexhaustible, brimming with artistic masterpieces and history and stories as innumerable as its halls are vast. The world’s most popular museum is downright intimidating. So we can all be grateful that Elaine Sciolino — award-winning author, veteran reporter, and talented storyteller— chose it as the subject for her latest book.

In Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum, Sciolino approaches it not as an art expert, but as a curious and intrepid journalist, sniffing out the stories and demystifying what’s been called “a large, jumbled encyclopedia” by Louvre Director Laurence des Cars. Sciolino gets unprecedented access to the museum’s artwork, experts, and hidden corners — and the result is fascinating and fun, much like her previous books The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs and The Seine: The River that Made Paris.

Did you know that letters arrive at the Louvre, addressed to the Mona Lisa as a real person? Or that the “Beyoncé effect”— after the star’s Ape**it video with husband Jay-Z— boosted attendance to a new record in 2018? “The video was such a powerful, living art history lesson,” writes Sciolino, “that Louvre curators created a self-guided tour of all seventeen works of ark featured in it.” Or what about the ghosts that haunt the museum’s labyrinthine galleries?

A fun episode is when Sciolino enlists renowned chef Guy Savoy to analyze the relationship between food and art. She arranges a meal with an art historian and food critic at his eponymous restaurant on the Seine. When she shows Savoy a copy of Jean Simeon Chardin’s painting La Brioche, he recoils in horror. “But the brioche is burnt!” This revelation completely changes their perspective of the still-life…

Adventures in the Louvre even goes beyond Paris to the museum’s outposts in Lens (northern France) and Abu Dhabi. What’s more, Sciolino shares practical suggestions and insightful strategies for making the most of your time at the Louvre (which route to take, where to eat, even what shoes to wear). The book is guaranteed to deepen your understanding and appreciation for the world’s greatest museum.

Purchase a copy for yourself at your favorite independent bookstore, like the Red Wheelbarrow or Shakespeare & Company in Paris, or via Bookshop.org.

Catch Sciolino on book tour (more info on the author’s website):

Tuesday, May 13 – Smithsonian 6:45-8PM Virtual
Wednesday, May 14 – Montclair, NJ 7-8:30PM L’Alliance Française at Watchung Bookstore
Thursday, May 15 – Buffalo, NY 5:30PM Larkin Square
Tuesday, May 20 – New York, NY 6-8:00PM Albertine in Conversation with Paul LeClerc and Guillaume Keintz
Wednesday, May 21 – New York, NY 6:30PM Frick Collection with Xavier Salomon (private)
Thursday, June 5 – Paris, FR The Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore
Tuesday, June 17 – Paris, FR 7:30PM American Library in Paris
Wednesday, June 18 – Paris, FR 7PM Reid Hall – Columbia in Paris